Capture
by Nekomaru
Summary: Awoken in another stupor, how is she able to control it? Can she bare another lost, another love? Read and review please.
1. Whistling in the Wind, I hear his voice

4

Chapter one, Part one:

Whistling in the Wind, I hear his voice…

And once I thought the flood of tears were enough to bring him back to Osaka, Japan. From where the land ends, to that naked eye, a figure walking on water dragged something across his arm as if it compelled him from approaching any faster than his own tread could take. Was it a mirage? The water had become dirt when these legs raced for him. He subsists as the finish line that progressed much further. A hundred wings have fluttered past its chance and all but one lay hovering in the breeze. He exceeded such a lifeless feather, the survivor of Busuzima's men whom has returned to his pet after those countless years.

"Give this back to me when I return from the war." He said to me before setting off into the tempest of feathery manes. The reminiscences raced in the back of my head. His scarf... that's what he gave me. His treasure became my own until he carried only lines of blood.

"Never forget me, little one." I hear him from the past. Ruffling my hair with one, masculine hand and holding the machete with the other, he rests it across his shoulder.

My legs stuttered like the words of hesitance as my impetus thrives the feet forward. Those so called dawdling and licking steps craved my hunger, my mouth washed dry for it. I could tell with my eyes bunged that he must have been laughing in his eradicated mind like he always do when I make foolish attempts to please him. _How long has it been?_ We both would ponder before reaching an inch between each other. I wanted to scurry faster, to see his war scars, his smile, and his eyes! Those barren carmine eyes that blare, ignite, and burn more life and energy than the souls that levitate from the puddle of corpses surrounding us. My feet were threadbare and dyed with dirt, mud gathered under the hard-to-reach places of my nails, and my paws were already posed for a hug.

Sincere as he would aid my fallen feet, I found it amusing that he left me pounding to my knees. He chuckled, trying to hide his laugh but I thought differently. "I haven't seen you for almost an entire decade and you laugh at me?" I whispered half-heartedly. At that, he stopped immediately, looking down with a sigh escaping his parted lips. He reached out a bloody hand and ruffled my hair, the caress that I could feel shudder down my spine and burst with warmth in my sweating palms and lively heart. I grin, knowing just what he was thinking at the time and said with a soft voice, "Yes…I forgive your absence."

And once I thought the flood of tears were enough to calm my nerves and set me free from misery, I found it a fraud. It wept with plea but I knew that it wasn't all that I wanted, it was not the kind of plea a human or little infant would ask for when the mother refuses to give up and let the child have what it wants. It was something more than that. More than my heart can bear to speak if it could or more than my mind can take, noticing I can't explain it as simple as my thoughts could turn me. "You say these things as if I have done something wrong," Bakuryu the mole said when he saw my hot tears paint a line down my cheeks, "Be happy that I have returned undead and unharmed. We both have made it safely and there's no one, anymore, to change this."

I laughed and replied with a reflecting look in my eyes, "You kept me waiting almost forever. If I was alone for one more day, I would have lost it completely." My face suddenly twisted and my head started to react all on its own. It began beating like a drum, like my own pulse that kept me alive. Trying to shake it away made it more worst than before, but I couldn't let my master see me like this. Not a Zoanthrope such as myself.

"Your face is pale," he whispered with worry, "Have you been fighting, too, while I was in departure?" His words were getting to me already. And to think that I was strong enough to withhold anything of an ailment, this sort of nauseated pain proved me false. "Uriko…hear me. Explain to me why you are not standing before me, now?" He asks me once more, this time his worrying grew into a strong and concerned look through my structure. _My heart pounds in my head louder than it can beat. If this keeps going, I may be in the dilemma of suffering unconsciousness FOREVER. _I told my conscience. He looked at me a little closer than I thought he was. My pulse didn't have a sign of a steady pace and with that; it was easy to encounter my weakness from his view. His eyes told me not to lie to him, that I had to tell him why my legs wouldn't stand up for themselves. Too much blood that had flowed from my crimson structure, too much to count by a gallon that my slaughters from our hometown left me with someone else's blood in between my claws. He was looking hard at me. My soul was down to half a percent and descending as I look up on him, as if my lids were weighing me down more than the muscles trying to reach for his bleeding tears and twilight night hair. I smiled at him half conscientiously and returned to my once happy thoughts in somnambulism. And once I thought my blood of years yielding by in my hidden ingenuity was enough to bring him back from the graveyard of war, my laughter in my dreams proved me false upon those waiting days. I could repeat myself with these words but it wouldn't mean that it would change how I think of it. Not that it was all I had to say to him when I would finally reach to my feet and stand parallel to his masculine edifice. My eyes would tell more than that, of course I know. He calls through his kiss and I approach to him with pride. I stand to my heels and flow toward him only with one step facing the air. Where my heart sinks deep and my embrace around his waist was without memory, my trance, his voice still summons. "That's my little Uri," says he when I felt his chin lay upon my head, streak of hot water soaking my hair, "You've come to your master without hesitation and now we bond for this moment." That moment felt like a thousand hours of the wind's whisper through our quintessence. I wish of it to last longer.

Fragile as though the mind would be in a sense of miasma, let one alone send affection to thee who needs it. We come in many places to seek hospitality for our kind, the Zoanthrope Creatures, and deliver pleas from river to nations but already find the earthy treasure of soil lying below our feet. Look at me! My lexis mutters such rigmarole at this moment and yet some people understand my feelings through no words needed. They speak for me. My handsome gestures lay down on one stool alone and preach my life in words unknown. I line my words to guide my affection and settle to let it be not miasma. There had to be a silencer-lance (mute) in my family who could not speak words through their mouths but their fingers, arms and hand. To this, I must have inherited it with my own self-discipline, how my fingers randomly flew about behind me as these lips and chest rose with altitude to touch those softened lips with my own. Thy pride of my soul and his lay stiff and hesitant like a row of fragile glass bowls ready to be shattered by the trembling hands. Our minds can't stand so peacefully like the soul. We want to do this but what amiss can part us from this kiss? Is it his war that we are between at the moment? Is this the cause? It is what obliges the life in me and hopes that we, one day, accommodate those souls, leading me to the heavens to resent the evil in many ways. But I can't let that abide me, not the war, not my passion. After all, he's my master and he rules have to be obeyed: "Humans and HALF-BREEDS do not mix." I say peanut butter and jelly are not the same and they still go together. So what such existence stops he and I from binding? My heart burns my lonely thoughts into ashes so that I will never be alone again and the rules burn with it. He, Bakuryu, parts his embrace with a low and steady rate of knots though I feel not to let him go from my arms. "Don't leave me again, Bakuryu The mole. Hear me plea!" I muffled within his netted ninja gi; however, his stance seemed a little out of place form my own. I called forth his surname to see if his excessive walk from a week's mile did not overcome him. He responded, "Leave alone the worries that bathe your mind, my life here will slither down the narrow inlet of sovereignty. Don't try to spot it, Uri."

"Oye! This is just exhaustion speaking for you. The excessively torturing walk, of course! With a restless mind, you can't be thinking the right death, I mean, the right hell. Ummmm… the right way," I heaved with joy though knowing the truth will fly from my lips when I could heave no more, "You will … urm … 'kick the bucket' for only two minutes like you did last time, right?"

"You shouldn't worry yourself is what I meant, Uriko." He snickers as we, now, had little space to breath between each other and says softly to me, "But I seem to misconstrue that you are already in a silent sober." He chuckles again with a smirk and endorses me far enough for us to see eye to eye. His hands held the sides of my arms. Compared to his size, I was none but a stick figurine; even within him I could see something a bother. I couldn't find the core to him. Something tickled my spine over and harder than ever yet, still, I couldn't find the essence or the core. His gaze was much weaker and showing no bold soul anymore. I murmur without tears, "Just a little rest, none more than a little rest…" He twinges upon a spot and I look with a glance from his back: My fingers were covered in his blood, the blood that came from his back, the back which he hid from me. Such wet, sticky, and out of shape texture grudged around his sides. And he was holding it in all this time. I stammer in search of my words, "Lacking bravery to tell me, no? Master, I'll be more hurt if you hide it than for me to figure it out on my own."

"But that is the way life rolls. You must figure things out on your own."

That took me to a limit. Life doesn't roll off your shoulders like dusts from the desert; neither does it help make the living much better than now. This couldn't have been him, the way his words flew with a croak. Neither wind nor light of the heavenly clouds whispered so fluently of the voice. Bakuryu The mole, sliding happily away form my quavering finger tips, held out one hand that foolishly masquerades my entire cheek and pulled me forward to his lips. My eyes weighed on me yet, again, knowing that I felt faint before reaching him seemed lovingly. His warm, pursed lip gently pressed against mine before I was able to remind him: _We are like peanut butter and jelly that don't mix though we still stick together; tighter than one of million threads._

The crackling explosion bombard around us with specks of dirt and tears of fire shooting inward and ricocheting off the gore ground. They, the iron eagles with exploding eggs and a shrilling cry, whistled in out ears, but this war known to men parts themselves from this identical realism. To this, it reminds me of the incorrigible soul of a planet, Euripus, hanging by a violin thread. It was so close to it singing demise. And with every throbbing stroke, it would vibrate beneath our feet. Many of what my kind may be wane too early in years, always living between terror and courage. Which were we to choose at such an instant? Such a sorrow melody that played our fate: lying in the graveyard unburied and decaying. He and I, for so much time, we lie together in a bundle. Our tangled arms did not want to separate but tangle closer, tighter and more lovingly than before. I find myself in a bundle of wires with him, though soon I know that someone or something would unwind our solitude together so prudently. I wish of his death to pass yet he shall lay here with me. He will stay on this earth and not move form any other realm of neither heaven nor hell. As it is said, "Wherever he goes, I come along," and it will not change to this any longer, for I keep my duties intact and nothing else. If it changed dramatically due to our tampering with the forces between humans and Zoanthropes then there is no choice but to render it helpless to this closure: I don't give a fanny. When he released from my grip, all was left of this field was me. Not a single segment of either life or death that I could hem in my paws. Some would flee about if I possessed life or death. But it wasn't thy master that was in possession of my paws but I that was spared his time to last enough for me to come forward and tell him, "Thank you." Though when I tried plenty of times, it came out in my words: "How dare you" and "You could have come earlier. I was worried sick!" Thinking brutally at this and gently rest Bakuryu on his homeland. He seemed quieter that way. The blood from his back didn't gather long enough to drip from my arms when I glanced at it. It just gleamed there, reflecting my glassy eyes and running tears. They drip from my cheeks where the red washed away.

"You can't weep now." Said a voice. I hesitantly look about myself, though seeing nothing, catching their scent. This voice I heard couldn't have been my master or the voices of heaven. It was manly high and wind-soft, not girlish in a way but soothing with strength and hope mixed into one.

"You can put him down. We must hurry on to our land." It said again.

"Why must I hurry so quickly when there is one devotee to be mind? I am so close for this moment. Why now and not tomorrow?" The words speak no more for they had dispersed from the wind and left me alone once again. So huddled in the chilling heat was I; me, by the side of all who had not defeated death, I lay here. Curled into a ball, I lay on his breathless chest for many hours. Only until then will I join Bakuryu, my words will finally flow to him and I will not be afraid to say this: "You are the veins that give my heart blood, the sun that shine on my earth, and the jelly that stick to me, a peanut butter. You are my lover and I am here to say this in front of you." I ought not to fear him or death that will sleep with me. With the moonlight glistening across my pale face, my heart raced with such an excitement for I knew what was to come of this time: Tylons, also known as shadow enemies only because they imitate any living beings features even if they were dead from years on. The ball of my fists were dreaded and drenched in the misty heat and my eyes, though deeply blue when in high spirit, were as pale as the moonlit orb but as bronze as the blood painted on my hands. These figures collaborated and had figured which imitation to take for I have seen many of these dead faces before. "You may _not_ fool me with such trickery" growled I, "When the only trickery I've seen is surviving death!" And for these words, my anger rose alongside my voice. There was no intention to stop when my legs were already vulnerable to the quaver of my fear and my claws were long-drawn-out and arched to hook the Tylons as long as my paws would let me drag their ridiculous faces across the blood of every victim that had forever more plead with their children's mercy not to be killed. Were they, these over-grown excuses of cockroach imitations, ever to listen to a child?

"I think not of it," said I when those actions were taken not by my thoughts but my threadbare paws. Already were more of them to return. Some were to be born from the shadows of the victims; others were from some I have deteriorated against the broken boulders. Behind me, beside me, in front of me, were they all to be but the hatred adrenaline rushing through every of my blood cells intravenously? I was able to see straight through their deceit with but a surveillance of my heated eyes. Each of which were spotlighted randomly, cautiously. It had to be from behind. A little one advanced of me and whimpered these words: "Save the child's teddy, thy soul that makes me who I am." My cat-like tail only twitched with famine like a house cat ready to strike the first squeaking mouse at a corner. And when I behold this rodent, it will squeal with it watery eyes bulging from its sockets. Already my paws imagined such a delight. The phase of the moonlit shadow dispersed and there was only me once again. Within every breeze, I was to feel the shift of each shadow wanting to kiss the flowing vibrancy of my hidden fear. The smoky clouds shift once more and breathing chests surrounds me; chests of which heave no more once the hoodwinking lungs stop at their precious time. The Tylons' arms were highly posed for a falling fist attack. The little one had emerged once more with a more highly repentance of such voices like a spell wishing me to obey. But I decline. And for that decision, my prince was dearly high for the space between death and me were so close; it shriveled at the sight of my eyes. Was I to hear that merciless cry and forgive that little one for so much of its sin? The deed of death becomes me and, with the Tylons drawing closer, I curled in a ball for a prance. I lay on all fours, my pales eyes surveying so slowly from one side to the glairing other.

They draw one step closer all at once, the little one repeating robotically fast but I was still to hear her words. There were man of them and one of me so fighting became unfairly challenging. But, still, I charge head on, my left claw horizontally in front of the deceiving child and me. She stands emotionless with her teddy bear but such little words; "Awaken child" sent plenty of other Tylons alongside her. With my uproar inkling along with my shuddering momentum, they were to only disappear before me and strike me from behind. At an instant my spine had bent further forward into my vulnerable appendages and left me choking for just the little of seconds I had to recover. Again my paw reaches forward of me to scrape the blood-clogged dirt and moving onward across it grounds. With such a weightless structure of me only my paw was gliding across the ground. A Tylon had already approached in the highest of its speed yet so slowly to my eyes. And so I twist my waist only feeling my ankle solidly connecting with a Tylon's neck. It may have only been one hit but it was surely victory to me. Now many more were to come. Yet, even with the triumph in my hands, my ankle was never to move from the kick. Had I deeply engraved my ankle into the thickened skin? I glanced aside my risen posture to find my master smirking, side glancing before me. Was he real or was he a Tylon? I wanted to know quickly before he was to do anything to me. I cried forth his name when really I wanted him to let me go, "Bakuryu!" I made sure my wail traveled from ear to ear of each Tylon and dead person. He only smiled at me, removing a gleaming sword from each f his wrist: one of light, the other of darkness. And with the sword in his free hand heightening and I declining, he swung me through the ocean of heartless figurines while he, with dark-feathered wings reaching the skies, stand in the midst of the Tylons that were drawing closer. Only seeing him highlighted in the moonlight, it was no doubt he was truly my master. And so I reach out to him only, now, mouthing the words of his name and alongside with the voiceless words: _I love you._ He vanished from the shadows of the Tylons as I Soar far, far way into the deepest of the distance. A cold chill traveled my spine in a way I could have stayed that way almost forever. How was I to save him now while I helplessly soar downward of the declining ground and oncoming lake.

It was but a few seconds before I knew that I had already dived within the cooling water. I lay motionless but still gliding underneath the surface so slowly. My willingness was yet to come for me but I have waited too long for this moment. Everything seemed so unnatural for just those three hours: the deceiving, the blood, and the hidden ingenuity. I couldn't tell what was real and what was not anymore. Was it really Twilight or a Tylon who wanted to switch sides for once? They all bugle my mind, jumbling, distorting, shaping words I have not seen. My eyes tighten beneath the water. _I'll be there, just wait for me. _It was calling, deepening through the little vortex of my thoughts. _This is my day. Don't you dare miss it. _Miss what? Where was this coming from? _Awaken, child. You are drenched in many tears. _Let it be the last of these childish dialogues, if this is but a dream. So soon was I to feel the anxiety rushing from my feet, in between my fingertips where my claws once whitewashed the plenty of bloods, and across my neck to where the utmost energy had flood upon me. Deceivers…all of them. Everything was a lie, none of which were truths. It was a test and I was the subject for every action, every sight of demise, and every _cause_ of demise. They wanted this to happen. That was why they had come to me. There was never a fight in Busuzima's men nor were there anyone who had met their ending. _Come…I don't think she's breathing. _Many questions were to be unanswered and when they come to such a conclusion, it would just lead to more questions. What made me who I am does not answer why they would want to do this me. Had I hidden anything from them, I would have given it to them. But there was nothing else to give. I lay here, captured by the breathless water. Smear of blood rocket across me, for I lay still in a trance, a thought to my timing. Bakuryu had the upper-hand. Whoever he may be, real or a Tylon, I would think to be captured by him whilst I would be his guidance. He takes this figure and in return, gives me his scarf to protect it from the chill of loneliness. Never will I get him. _How is she drowning? Her baptism ended hour ago._ "Give this back to me when I return," I hear him from my past. _When will he get here? He's the only one to save her. You mean she's the only he's got_. "Never forget me, little one." _Awaken my child._

"Stand here before me." _You can do it_. "Awaken!" _Wake up, Uriko!_ Where no one else but I to find these things appear before me, I am captured, stuck in between what I think is the past and possibly the present and future. But they jumble, and so I may unscrew them to where they meet cleanly. And where they shall meet, I shall capture, CAPTURE the truth that has tested me for years on. I will; I must. And when I do, I'll be ready. What was to protect me was a protection no more for my figure keeled in the deepest of uncomfortable tingles. Desperately without anyway to reach a breathing space, something clutched alongside the rim of my collar. A very firm grip it was, shaken and red-streaked. "You're alright now. Just keep breathing." Said the soft-spoken voice. _It's not him_. I thought at the tone. I was like a helpless fish moving my lips up down as if wanting to speak but no wards flew. My eyes were blinded by both the darkness and water droplets. He chuckled in my ears and continue to drag me across the thicken soil. When my back had finally hit the dirt and none other than the soft breeze cooling my skin, this person muttered slowly to me, "Sorry 'bout that, Uriko. I forgot you can't swim." Though he tried to hold it in, he dearly wanted to burst into laughter. "But you know," his echo shuddered my spine to a chilling heat. "Once I capture your heart, your master will be the one to destroy the earth next time." My heart completely dropped beneath my ribs for they sunk deeper and deeper into the boundaries of both Mother Earth and hell. To once think it couldn't engrave any lower, it felt as though my spine reversed its gravitational pull and left me breathing new born air. What I was beneath my eyes did not surprise me of what I could bare to begin with: God's hand, surround by the light, reaching down to us. My tongue swelled in my throat before I could caterwaul and when once I thought all the threads of life were to be snapped by the hands of God, needless to know, I discovered something darker than my soul…


	2. New Beginning

4

Chapter one, Part Two:

Dreams come true, but nightmares do too

(Ten)

Cautious as I would be when a symphony starts from every corner. Only my feet were steadily tapping at the beat. They would pound like thunder, shaking every side within me; I stood ready. _It has to be to the left,_ I thought when the sonorous cacophony perked my right ear. _No, not the right; the left._ So as my sudden instincts would show, my feet dug deep in the flaky soil and drove left. Had that silver bullet nearly hit me, only the tear of my fragile shirt would show of it. "Why won't they give up?" I growled, scowling to my left; my posture to my right. Within every attempting beat of the surviving heart, yet another vibration crackles through the air. This time, the only way forward was up. Slightest of the wind that had bristled my hair, told me, guided me to where I should survive. _Their all around_, I conveyed to the wind. To the left, I look, a couple of fires were lit and men chatter with their silent tongues. _No, not there._ To the right, it was yet the same. Twigs crackled from either sides and from every side the chill goads my fear. _I don't want to move. Where's sis?_ Hot water gathered around my eyes and my face began to burn and swell. "I've come too far," my claws assume the form of ten crescent talons, curved, thick, and slightly jerking for the battle, "They just want what have." And what I had was a question to myself. Again, the callow, dirt-clogged feet grinded against Eve's soil. My legs arched, my arms raised and postured for such belligerency. They were coming, closer, louder, and more silently aggressive than before. All ready, I was planning out what to do them. Knack their heads together…swing anything I have at them. And on the rushing side of my mind, escaping was my number one alternative. _Hurry up and run for it! _Would I have run like a cowardly cat or stand brave and tall like a lion? Two choices but one was bleeding through my mind…Run. Forever, nevertheless, what I thought was the gravity pulling me up; it was none but the freedom of my legs that rushed me up the weeping willow. The orb in the dotted sky hung beyond me, far, far out of my reach. And there below me, there were the other Zoanthropes. All of which were running from tree to tree just like I was. Such melodies that surround every corner, every second of my time, I glide fluently across the cool breeze. Their cries were ever so distant and still it sent plenty of cold water down my spine. Some Zoanthropes were driven into the ocean where their bodies sink deeper into its hold and just submerge within the grip of the foaming waters. What sorrow can't I not bare to perceive? It repeated to me over and over and over again. How I'd wish my ears were silent to the caterwaul but, no. Even with that, just seeing them helplessly stand there, raising both hands from mercy, was too much.

(Nine)

Somewhere in a long forgotten mind, I find a place I should have been years ago. But that was not where my destination would end. There were more places where I had to search; my heart was too reckless to start at. If I were me, would my shadow tell me what is wrong with my emotions? If I were my shadow, would "me" let out all my emotions? It continues in one's head to think of something long forgotten which comes from the heart. Somewhere in the deepest of such a soul, withering as the chill stole whatever warmth I had, I daresay there was something provoking to come free. A desirable wish, perhaps?

(Eight)

"Bring her down the warpath! Let it loose!" was the last of what I was to hear before my ribs were pierced coldly by the whizzing silver that put me to the edge of its sword. Neither was I sure nor relieved to hear the air crackle straight across my gentle ears; I rather pleasure it to only be the thunder that struck me twice. Beyond the plenty of blood that dribbled from me, my reflection, as hollow as the breathing air, ploughed the waves of the whispering wind. Across its glowering white nightgown, a number was the only darkened space to spill through the ghost's hue. Its over-the-window cry carried further across the valley than any other Zoanthrope that could bare the pain. It wailed and as I declined for only the given seconds that I had to dead-silently mouth what words that would only choke inside my throat, I murmured unblinking with tears, "Where art thou Ura…Uranus?"

"I'm here." It says before I fade.

(Seven)

Before me, my eyes see the usual:

People, places, and pity…

Three "Ps" and all but one made sense to me: pity. Though I find laughter and cherishing from all who falls down the line of humanity, there is one line broken through. A place where someone could plan any detrimental matter and no one would know about it until it was too late. That's where I come in. When at first my heart and mind would stop for life or death, I reborn my features all at once. My eyes would glitter from the sky even if the sky had slept before me; the trees in my hair would only sprout oranges and black tiger stripes when really the color was suppose to paint on my cheeks; a dove's wings would follow behind my steps and not an inch apart from my pace. I feel my dearest friend, one who whispers refreshingly as the wind, caress my fur and whisper a lilting melody in my ear. I answered with rhythm in my whispered voice, "When time reclines before your eyes, your pity will be taken and freedoms arise." We soon smile to each other and advance to what we do best on Eve's soil. I know he is watching us but I pay no mind to father of Gods. I was the first to lead the way into the rush of the wind.

(Six)

They brought me somewhere. White walls were lined everywhere around me, blinding me almost into insanity. I squirmed from what ever it was that grasped me ever so tightly. But doing so reaped my breath. Aside the lucidity, an onyx panoramic windowpane glared back to me. Unable to see through it, I was to see myself. But it couldn't have been me, that half-divested girl whose over-sized belts was the only thing to protect her virginity. With but a glimpse to my side, I find what kept me at my place: chains, very thick were they, to be only thick enough to suck the life out of me when trying to break free from it; one on each my arms and legs, waist and neck, including a, somewhat, small mask that hid my mouth and nose. I see a man, very up-tight and well-groomed like an entrepreneur or such. He must have had something to do with this. I hear him say beyond the thick, black glass, "Has she any viruses? Advantages?" And the old man beside him differed in opinion. Latches upon latches from one side of me clicked each at its turn as the businessman follows through a door in which I have not seen. When he approached through, along with two shelled guards, the latches locked itself. As he drew around and surveyed me, my lungs twisted inside me, sinking deeper as our space was but an inch apart.

"What a _beautiful_ specimen…_gorgeous. _None I have seen with so much tenacity." He said slyly with a rather French accent.

"What do you want?" I heaved at him through a small mask.

"And you know our language." Enthusiasm, now, took over his tone. He began to smile. I'd like to have whipped it off his face if I could but the struggle was no use.

"What I want, Uranus," he said, drawing closer to me, "Is for you to show me who you really are. What is inside all that…anger?" He was surely enough precise of my emotions for my claws were only prone to strike at any chance I had.

"It's Uriko not Uranus." I corrected him of my name. He just stood there and smiled. The level of my patience were locked away somewhere deep inside me. "Yes, of course. But mind yourself that I was not talking to you." Before I was able to ask of his comment, he swayed one hand over his shoulder for a sign. My body began to feel heavy to the bone. The chains in which were tightly locked onto me had slithered from my body and away into the ceiling like puppet strings. My arms and legs laid on all fours; my knees buckled at the instant I was loose.

(Five)

Beating the bare feet on the dirt, I race with her quicker that I thought. One would usually estimate any velocity passing nearer toward the face when such speed can only be measured by feet. To me, velocity was careless of me. It mistaken me as itself; a laugh, indeed. Such humor that I laugh to myself in a way one would not think of it as none other than a snicker. I matter it boredom. First, the rush excites me until it ends with a sober from the clouds. The wind had had enough of me; and so I thought the same. We depart our laughter to silence and she would clamor our ears in a ring tone unheard. A ring tone of roaring thunder.

(Four)

"Set up the ceiling. I think we're going to find what we've been looking for." His echo remorse the reliant blush around my ribs where the bullet had once been. What was I to see but the cold, hard cement? Alighting my figure, the darkness glimmer upon me.

"Go ahead. Look up, Uranus," his childish goading resembled a grimace on his face somewhere, "What harm can a little beast change do?" _Plenty, _I thought solemnly. All I wanted to do was disappoint him; make sure his grin was clean off his face. _I'll give him what he wants. But he's not going to like it. _My bones wobbled as I used my arms to life me off my front. The higher I rose, the harder and heavier it was to stand on both my feet. And as I progressed, more and more of the man I saw. The moonlit orb bathed upon me. I was washed by its luminosity, and now broken into two parts: sour love and sweet revenge. I quaver, here, on all fours, lengthening whatever I had when it was time to call forth all raven of demise. "Tell me what you feel, Uranus," says the man. His grin had to be pleasurably passing a mile by now.

"Let I say it to you once," my growl heaved moist puffs under my breath, "And not another time more. I am Uriko Nonomura. It will not change by any who can not over-rule me. Ya got that!" Already was I on my feet by the second, I was able to see his scowled face now. "Guards!" I hear him cry. _Right where I want them._

(Three)

That's where places come forth from hiding. It finds its way pass the blindfold and tells me to squint for more vision. And so I did, but it can be fooled by my appearance that places will think of me as a traveler wanting home. Indeed, a traveler was I but ever was I homeless. Around me, Earth was my home. All of whom I have never seen before greets me with waves and smiles. People…that of which I am but I do not act as, a person, I am, to those who think of me as themselves or someone they think they know. And now I pass them all. I dare not glance back nor glimpse forward for I come forth to the city and out into the moonflower meadows. My mind races and I am out of breath. Anxious, was I, ready to be broken from this cell. The clock strikes nine and I am just an inch away from the home singing angels. I rest my sins upon that place. It watches me hereafter and even months ago. This is where I belong.

(Two)

He began to laugh eccentrically. His hair was a mess and his clothes were askew. He wasn't a businessman anymore; he was a coward. Inching cautiously by his side, only two of his shelled guards crept toward me. They thought of me to be the explosive a building: uncontainable and a second away from zero. "Oh, how rude of my appearance. Let I answer you my name." says the entrepreneur as he bowed with manner, "I am Colonial Alan Gado, the leader of the army force. I only come to capture those who are not fitted in this world; bring peace when all zoanthropes are in pieces." He treads on the heels of self-glorification and presumption, feeling pretty on what he was to say to me. "Feeling lucky, now, Uranus?" he uttered in high spirit and began to spurt more satirical questions across my face, "You want to** say **something to me? You want to **do** something to me? Are you mad? You look mad. Want to hit me? I'll let you hit me. Here, take a shot." He grazed an arm over the belt strap on my chest, testing me, persuading me. But I didn't move. "What are you? Afraid? Scared? A cow—." Deliberately, without warning, his chin was struck with the ball of my foot. They could say: "I couldn't help it." But, really, I only gave him my formal and simple enthusiasm, "No." From aside my posture, where both my arms gently trembled from those who held me, I found the shelled guards agreeing to my actions; seeing that they have not come forth to my stance and forced me to the ground. I, too, began to hint a snicker, feeling petty good about myself. "She really hit me! That lifeless little excuse for a pesticide!" I heard him growl.

"Let her have it." Giggled Gado and the two men aside me took turns knocking me to my knees and beating the crap out of me. One of them had the courage to pull me by the hair and let my eyes face the air directly. I've had worse beating than this; but pulling my hair? Uh-uh. "Make sure she stares at that God forsaken moon until her eyes bleed!" _Are you kidding me? That's like asking a baby to maneuver a button bomb. _Two more were to come behind, the window of their helmets glowering red. Rushing across either of my fronts and back, only two were to already tame me. _Guess not_… What was the use of any other struggle if what was to be aimed for, was like walking a thousand miles with a boulder clinging to my back?

"Over there." He pointed somewhere behind me, somewhere I ventured upon not to look. My arched back was to drag across the ground and solidly glance off the cardioid's pivot. "What ridicule," said I in a hushed voice, "Obeying like leashed dogs. I pity those who act in action and not think why they do such things." To this, I was to see the amber flame ignite within Gado's eyes. How could he resist wanting me to be his dog of obedience? He compressed my jaws with just one hand, making sure I could not veer my face loose. His thumb, anxious to press further in, hooked the jaw line to the point one could not prickle a gulp. Lettering his French words and clicks, none of such spells were to penetrate the numb sensibility of me ever to heed or fathom. It was just my pulse. Whatever was he to say it was to my inferior cost for when my chin struck the air, my prying thirst for knowledge consumes, through cold blood, as a thing apart. The Stars, as I was to see it without prompting the memories to the surface of my sanguinary eyes, reeled across a moonflower valley, somewhat, like auroras waxing and waning from pearly sapphire to a polychromatic murkiness. I find it to only be the milky moon waxing on me, waning away ever delinquent amber skin that bare the bruises and blood spills.

An empty, black vortex in my mind withheld a tantalizing mockery of excellence. It throbbed until that depleted mind flew forth from the surface to my inert actions, aiming for whatever it was that caught my pupil less eyes. The lifeless haze had coursed my veins, awarding me a, somewhat, mirth-provoking feeling across my skin. Everything I was to see danced horridly. Beyond the blur, the halo moon ruptured into its bloody color. That and everything that was to meet my eyes. My petite fingers, with lovelorn talons, writhed in greed. My spine yanked spruces of fur throughout my back, dispatching hundreds of pulsating overcasts luring me into its place.

"She's seen too much! Bring her down!" Such a cry tickled me ever so lovingly when what I felt tighten my gossamer arms were nothing more than slight squeezes. Pulses…heart-throbbing anxiety…everywhere! I allowed one of my arms to freely lift from my side and swerve to the point my claws were to grip a neck. In the thick of the fray, a pellet whistled just an inch from my ear but squarely on the victim within my grasp. Only ounces of his rosy serum stippled my cold cheeks. I released of its useless body and shimmered across the shadows in which coats me with pulsing steps. And within every eluding bullet, what tenderness of revolting shrills come from each armed man as I stealthily worked my way through rows of them until there was but one left? And from that "one", Gado still stands, scared enough to wet his pants. _Awww…Like a puppy. _I thought referring to Gado and last shelled guard standing. Unhesitant, lashing my arm around the guard's neck in a headlock and hearing it fall to pieces at the moment; I wrung him to the ground, and dug deep into the flesh and bone of his back to make sure the corpse couldn't move another limb. Now it was just me and the entrepreneur. But, unlike others I have come against, he approached in the midst of his awe.

"S-such beauty, shape, _purpose_." He crawled wryly on all fours, breaking humid sweats and stumbling over countless carcasses. It must have been his sense of art that had made him do such involuntary things. And so, as I approached him, I made my getaway into the window above me where I now stood beyond the…sea?

(One)

I have searched and now I regret my action, my purpose. Prices are to be paid when the sacrifice, itself, can not gain what it needs. So, for my price when sacrificing to search for the deepest function upon my heart's purpose, I depart from the real world I use to live in. My mind begins to regain and what is before me was part of my sacrifice: glowering moonflowers and the crashing oceans. There is this spot somewhere that I know, somewhere I wish was never there before I knew what it was. They say comfort and kindness is what makes it bigger but that is not true. I've had that before but that "thing" hasn't gotten bigger at all. It just shrunk, decline, deteriorate, and FAIL to exist in any way. I feel this spot burn, not with love, but burst and sink away. If dies but keeps coming back more irritable than before. Seeing how it can't leave, I live with it. But across from where it should, across the seven seas, it is already my new beginning.

(Happy New Year…)

But wait! Isn't this just a dream?


	3. Long the savior

2

Chapter One, Part Three

Waves bringing forth the calling crashes between my ears. I was ashore from the blue to the boulders; my body soaks from the waters. Beaming roughly on my tender eyes, darkness seeks blindly for my crimson shape. Flashed, the moonlight flickers and fills the deep ends of every bulging rock which holds me in its place. Such thickened red spills in between its sides. I hold that place for which I leak the red; that place along the bumps of my ribs. Every segment that I seem to come along seeps and reshapes its solid figure then and again. What bribes me to stand washes on me once more and though I reject, it sends me across the plains and into its grasp where I lay ashore. One hand, enough, can carry me from soft sands to rough rocks and this hand used but a finger. That thing of a finger used its arm, an arm of sea, to crash what desires me to stand. Here, I lay sprawled within every dust of water and land. So many has the shore swathed from me—my wings, the cemented floor that I dearly miss, the sun, hunger, and my sight. What else am I to see tonight when an eye plus another has been darkened from the salty ocean? My arms are not arms anymore and my ears twitch unlikingly on the top of my head. A glass shard stands aside my posture and I reach the gleaming mirror. One bloody leg, one broken rib, one life of mine to give, and both sights of the past and future to extinguish. _The shore washed away what monster I use to be and has now revealed the human I am. _The blade hastens in my grip and the long, cracked sting traces my neck and breast. From every corner of the night, the crash of water and my wail fills its silence. The angel of death did not want to take me yet for the remains of my surviving life still stands. With only my arms to lift me first, every limb of my legs drags ashore. The island I lay in is not deserted. Already, with my keen ears, I have heard moving silhouettes glide to each crinkly palm tree. "Who's there?" I cried but instead of these words, only mournful wail erupted through my throat. With the shard still gripped in my hand, I lay until the on-comer arrives. I wait in long hours. The absorbance of the sand took a quarter of my lost red and every time I helplessly askew my position, another wholly shape soaks from the seeps of my bones. Neither my energy nor the cacophony of crashing waters resisted to stay with me for I flutter half awake and wholly asleep, hearing only squeezing sands rushing forward of me. Two warm hands gather around me like a sleeping child around the arms of a mother. Their strength was, somewhat, stern and shaken haplessly as from loss of energy. Though it was just one voice, I find its spirit was those of a thousand soldiers.

He said, "For such a small one, you are the first to survive a water surge such as this. I see there are great things to come for you." Though his language was foreign to my ears, his melody of an accent told me I was safe. No matter the family, I was safe now.

At a young dog's hour, I began to witness the penetration of my ligaments. Every limb within my body was aflame though tightening by the structure of torn shirts and tissue. Whoever stood responsible for securing the wounds, especially the amateur who did my chest, they had done a very poor job of doing so. Yet, still, I give them my honorable gratitude. A door creek slowly from my left and I jolt on my fours, eyes auburn and alert. My sight had restored to its keen alertness, but my destination remains a question. "A temple? Someone get me out of here!" I cried and a tall, pale man approaches with a glass of honey tea. Looking from where I stand, only quilted bed sheets surrounded me, but with one step of a palm, something dragged around my arms. _A long sleeve? A **very** long sleeve. _In a form of a student, I felt controlled, dim-witted, and vulnerable. If, at any chance, the shelled guards were to catch me, it was back to the entrepreneur I go. What man I see before me; long dark hair, slightly slit openings for the eyes to barely see through his glasses, fair muscle structure that's only strong enough to be a potent fighter, and a iron wrist bands. With only the sea breeze to cool the sands and flutter the waters, I find this weighty object the lightest of the rest of him. He placed it on a stand where a mirror with cracked line leaned against the white walls. It must have been the force of is single fist to make such traducing designs.

"You haven't done anything unforgiving, have you?" a voice boomed around the empty walls. He places the tea with the iron wrist bands and turned his heels back to the doors. I quickly raced behind him, forgetting the tea that was offered. He was my only defense. There was no _way _I was going to let him out of my sight. He halted mid-way through the door and looked down upon me. "Already healed, have you? Well --? He reached across the stand with both his rough yet gentle hands and secured the bands onto his wrists again. "It wouldn't hurt giving you a tour around." Hearing his small slippers clatter lightly and pace striding fluently enough to brush against my hair as I was behind him, eerie objects emerge from every corner. Some of which were made of a clam's pearl glistening in the morning rays, having no forearms or head to show its nude expression and only a crinkled stone cloth to hide its hip and feminine thigh.

"This isn't exactly my house so don't get too comfortable leaving trash behind." He confronted with a hint of laughter and began to point at things in which to examine each room and obscure objects. "This right here," he sways his hand to the right where on an amber room was dimly lit by little of the light's rays through silky red curtains and walls covered wit thousands of thick layered books and selves, "is a miniature library. It contains the oldest books; from 1270 A.D to the present year. If you think the archeologists know so much about the old age, this place proves them wrong." He took a moment for me to examine the qualities of the room before he had settled off down the hall again.

"To the left of the library is the guest room. Across from it is the main patio which leads to the beach over there. That's where I found you."

My impression was above all else, smoldering in the heat's rays, such aroma of the beach sand tickled my pink nose. And yet he carried on down the walkway, my eyes laid fixed upon the open patio. _He saved me…twice._

When once the sounds of crashing waters and singing seagulls waver around in my ears, the padding feet of the young stranger had stopped. He looked at me with interest of my holding and asked me slowly, "Do my tours bore you?" I jolt to my senses to find the man who has saved me from the jagged rocks of the oceans looking softly onto me like a child of his own. His long ponytail waved as softly as his smile. "Oh no, no." I cried to him with a shaken head and followed his trail a little closer now.

After we examined the qualities upon the guest house, it took me great courage to ask him just one simple question: "W-what's your name?" The man turned his head toward me and hummed in perplexity. I felt better if he were to look the other way when I spoke to him but now we were face to face and my face was burning bright with embarrassment. I swindled my arms from side to side while tilting my head to the floor and repeated my question more childish-like. "I-I just wanted to know your name."

**Note to all the reader's: The odd numbers of chapter one, part two is actually Long the tiger. I didn't know that until now. **


	4. Testing one, two, three

5

**Chapter Review**: As far as we know, Bakuryu and Uriko were separated from the Tylons and someone with a voice just like Long had saved Uriko from the little river. Mind yourself that that was just the past… or was it a dream? Anyway, Uriko had a first taste of the Tylon corp. with the one and only Alan Gado. With such a victory, Uriko is washed ashore into a whole new world with Long. She thinks that Long was the one that really separated her and Bakuryu. Now let's see how these two get along.

Chapter One, Part Four

Testing one, two, three…

He took me in as one of his own; a student. At first, I found it to be odd to record me as a child he has known for many years but when such words like "lesson" surface to my ears it was certain that we were, now, family. Following swiftly as he would lead, my pace took twice as much effort to be beside him. Along the lines of the hallways frames had shown most of animals in front of a disfiguring image in the background. Some of them I was able to recognize: a horse, sheep, pig, rooster, monkey, and a large brown cow with curved horns; others I could not make out because they were all slashed diagonally as if clawed by a vicious animal. I looked at my teacher with concern. _It must be mournful to live with a monster. _

"Now…" he said turning his heels toward me and looking down with a smile, "Before we enter into a world you will soon call your past I must ask you… have you the potentials of the animals you have seen on the walls?" What words I bare myself to feel a fool to not know he was spying on me. My face reddens with fury though I feel to only let him see the embarrassment instead. Not knowing what to say, my words dithered through my lips, "Am I a beast within? Is that what you're asking?" My eyes were locked to the polished floor so having to know the answer would have to come from his lips as well. But I heard nothing other than his padded slippers. His warm, stern hand gripped my little head and ruffled it a bit. _Just like Bakuryu. _ Looking up at him bashfully, his smile was still with him like butter on toast; it just won't come off. "I'm asking you," he began whilst his smile slowly slid away, "do you have what it takes." If I was right, I would have thought the nice teacher with glasses had become from Dr. Jekyll to Mr. Hyde after the next three seconds because his hand was, then, ruffling as if wanting something from me; something I would dearly miss if he took it away.

Arising my head with a stern look also, I showed him how serious I was as well as him self. "I am in your debt, Sir Long. For saving me from the oceans, I shall prove to you what potentials I behold." It took me one breath just to say what was breath-taking along with the courage that fought its way through what emotion I could show to him. And to my relief, Long, Sir Long emerged his way down the walls of animals and loomed near a door closely in comparison to a watery wall. I was uncertain of what would surface from the gleaming atmosphere but I was sure not to come any closer than a hundred steps. Yet, even if my courage came from my words and not my steps, a force from beyond my actions moved both my tapping feet into a stride of hesitance and dubious swiftness of the eyes. I entered into a realm I have never seen, taking one baby step at a time to observe before ever proceeding to do the bidding of Young Long. Feeling another shove surpass me, Long came forth from my presence. "Are you already thinking twice?" he smiled at me. For some reason, I felt I was being taunted of fear just like what Gado did to me when I was hung from the chains. _I'm not a little girl. He better not call me a kid. _

It was out of coincidence that I knew what was to be of the little realm yet a modest thought told me to forget whatever came forth. The floors were swept cleanly of polish and lent-free surroundings, the walls were rice-covered and never touched by the daintiness of neither blood nor sweat, and multiple amounts of innocent weapons hung upon the convex ceiling. Even within my height I found the room to be the biggest thing compared to the district of the Tylons' lab. My face whirled from one place to the other until I spun out of focus and onto the sun-beamed floor. A chuckle emitted through the walls and above me advanced a hand. I took it and realized something had clasped onto my left wrist. To my bottom, I had already fallen once again. "So your potentials have shown already," said Long, "I expect for you to at least take two steps before falling on the floor but you have surpassed my expectations. Now…" The tapping of his feet had slightly faded away until they had stopped. I turned my head to find Master Long across the room with a stick in his hand. Without hesitance, he threw it at me with such speed though I caught it without realizing it. The force was beyond belief. Even if he were to give it to me by hand, the breeze would clearly flow from his arms as if his whole body was consumed by the essence of the wind. "If you can hit me with nothing, then you can hit me with everything." I couldn't quite figure out what he meant by "with nothing" when I specifically had a stick in my hand. My grip tightened but, to my utter surprise, nothing was there. I was holding air the whole time!

With so little of a movement, I could have sworn the stick was in my hand. But it wasn't, it was in his. _This is it_, I told myself. My feet skittered against the floor while my body leveled with the room and arms freely lifting away from my sides. _It's about time I show this chuckling know-it-all how good of a fighter I am. _

My knuckles cracked within my grasp and my eyebrows struggled not to scrunch into each other but I did it anyway. And aside my position and to my bewilderment, Long was sleeping while I was performing my fighting stance. He had to be taunting me with his hardest, saving his best tricks for the worst opponent: me. It had to end here; no more taunts, and especially no more smiling. What the heck was he, a Jack-in-a-box? My legs were high in altitude along with the rest of my body. The realm was bigger than I had imagined. I was a hawk to him now, and he was my prey. One foot enough was all I needed. It launched over my head and down upon the head of the teacher. All he did was make a simple skit to the side and so I fell to the wooden floor. A splash of hot tingles surrounded the heel of my right foot as I recovered from my fall and swung my left foot across Long's ankle. And, again, all he did was jump with his arms behind his back. Now that he was in the air, his vulnerability was at high stakes. The weight of my legs had flown above me and both my arms stepped in turns of a cart wheel. Only grazing the end of his green silk kimono, I was surprised to find my legs not stinging from the pain of his torso but the hard wooden floor again. _I missed! _

"You rely too much on your feet." I heard a voice echo within the realm but the body of the speaker was no where in sight. A soft gust breezed me coolly against my back as I found my opponent one pace behind me. A metallic "_chink!" _clasped my right wrist as I began to feel the weight fall on me by over 200 pounds to the most. No matter how much I tried – chomping the cold, iron wristbands with my teeth; pounding it against the closest and strongest thing around me; and simply trying to pull it off my slender wrist – it couldn't fall rancid.

"What's this for?" I yelled at him. It took more than a couple of chances for me to raise my arms at least a centimeter from the ground before it had jerked back to its rightful placement upon the floor. I swear if I were to raise it again, my whole arm would have fallen off completely and cleanly. "This," I suddenly felt one of my arm become weightless as it was hung by the two fingers of Master Long, "is one hundred and fifty pounds of discipline _each_ if you fail to touch me with one of your techniques." The iron 'discipline' dropped down with a loud _clunk! _as Master Long strolled further away from dependency, slowly but surely away from my failure. I cried for him to come back and help me but such words were feeble to my wail and only double breaths surpassed my lips. My fingers tried to grip him like a rag doll even though he was yards away from me.

"You will not shed another tear nor cry for help when within the vicinity of your past for it is the last thing you will regret to do," though his back was turned I felt as if he were speaking to me face to face, "you will stay in here for nine days and until then, you should be able to lift that wristband much higher than a centimeter. But that is not all that I want you to rise. Figure it out, Uriko." Without a word from neither of our curled lips, Long left me breathless to the seclusion and now I lay coldly on the floor of 'discipline'. "This is my first mistake and I'm already having a hard time dealing with it." The watery door was sealed to its tightest as the tapping feet of Master Long had faded from such an existence. Though the sun had shown brightly through the large windows, I felt like I was in a spotlight. Darkness consumed me ever so teasingly like a blanket tickling over the back of a sleeping child. But I was not a child and it wouldn't take me nine days to master the weight of the wristband. "I'll show him." I growled through clenched teeth.

Six days were more like six weeks while the precision of tugging my arm from left to right was getting worse by the second. My arm was numb to the bone and it already took everything I had to throw twenty-eight punches while standing up. I tried to think of what new techniques to throw Master Long off his shoes but the strategy, itself, was a mystery forever more. It surprised me to know how long I've been within my 'past' but still I couldn't figure out the conclusion of the whole lesson. I was doing great with the Tylons. Why wasn't it working with Master Long? Of course his studies as a teacher proved to me that there are people much stronger than I and probably much weaker as well. I thought back on what had happened with the shelled guards. Flashes surfaced me with only little images of dead carcasses and men in mercy of their lives. Only little whispers were what I remembered hearing. It told me ever so slowly, "May your passion thrive, you WILL survive. No matter the blight, remember why you fight." I wanted them dead for meddling with my nature. But I didn't think the same way for Master Long. I didn't want to hurt him; I wanted to humiliate him in any way. The Tylons brought me to the brink in which I had no other choice but to attack while Long only challenged my potentials. Taking in one deep breath, I rose from my curl and swayed my heavy arm from side to side. Blood had already rushed within my fingertips but it had, before now, grown in me. Other than surpassing the possibilities of my iron arms, I steadily increased the study of my other ligaments.

Not long before, I was too much of a critical condition to move anything. Now, since the past couple of hours, I had the energy to only lay and rest against the rice-covered wall. The temple was an ocean itself when in the midst of the night. Its deep blue was only lighted by the hallway in the course of the watery door and the plenty of stars outside the windows that could not show on the sticky mists of the floors. But for several hours, I have questioned myself upon the thundering of the surface and roars cackling every then and after. Basically, I checked outside the windows to find nothing but the crashing waters of the ocean overflowing the sands with its hands and winds picking up speeds as the days and nights passed away. And if it wasn't coming from outside, my curiosity studied the hallway; it was as empty as my stomach rumbling for food.

"Had fun?" said a voice from behind. Had my ears fooled me? My heart had jumped to a whole new rhythm and my lungs swelled with despondency. If I were to turn around now, I didn't want it to be the one person I had thought it to be: a ghost! My body was within the weight of the iron bars. Letting go of the wall that once sustained me from my fall would mean the only thing I would be able to look at was its feet.

"Before you turn around," she said again, "I want to ask you something." Either it was because her words were what kept my bones to a sense of shock and disorientation or the fact that my blood was rushing so fast up my spine that the heated sense of turning my head wasn't a choice of mine own. My double gasps were emitting through my mouth, the environment had gotten colder though my blood was bubbling in my skin, and the suspense of it all had nothing to do with what my bravery actually took me for. "Are you really the mass destruction of all the Zoanthropes? I've heard some rumors that the Tylon was defeated by one little kitten."

Her cold hands shivered me ever so tentatively against the ball of my shoulders. "And these iron things," my arms were weightless once again, "What's with the buckle up?"

"Leave… leave me alone or I'll …"

"Shhhh. There, there, kitten." Her voice was too provoking to continue to listen to. But, at the moment, my arms were at the mercy of her benefit. "You wouldn't want that big, bad man to come back now, would you? It's a shame how he locked you up like this. It seems like he's using you as a toy than a student." She was, now close enough to sigh in my ear. "It makes you think: What would he do if you two slept in the same room."

I had about enough of her tease. At first, I didn't know what I was doing until I found myself swirling madly behind my back to find the whole temple empty again. My beat of the heart was much more deafening than before and the pulse of my breathing was as if I ran almost forever. Apparently, she was gone before I could ever have the chance to look at her.

After countless minutes, her words were still stuck in my head: "…what would he do if you two slept in the same room?" _Master Long would NEVER do that to me! _The only way I was to numb the tone was once every seven minutes the roaring of the animal and the pounding of the ground rumbling around me returning. I've wondered, eventually, why so much was going on beyond the halls. But I was soon to figure out that the commotion, itself, was not alone. There were other such voices. One of them was very sly in pitch; it was the same voice that made me tremble to the bone. But that was only one less voice I was to hear. One of them had to be Master Long while the other was that of a young lady but the last one I was questioning within deep thought. It, too, was an unfathomable voice of a man but very strong in turns of being a determined fighter. As far as I have used my curiosity, I was certain that I wouldn't be threatened of death for it. Master Long said this with an understanding of every last word of each sentence, "You yearn to know of this man but there is no need to be hasty. I'm sure he's just a hoax trying to bring back the beast I've once banished."

"Stand clear of my path, Long, and your life will be lasted! I want to murder him, flesh out his spine until he's a mushy goop of left over DNA!" I was sure that that was the voice of a dog by the instant. But it startled me that it hid something unforgiving. I could hear it within him, growing louder the longer he argued with this other person.

"Oh please, Yugo," the young lady threatened in boredom, "Like you can take on the two of us at once. You're glad that nurse had the heart to listen to your big mouth. If I were her, I'd just leave you with the Tylons and see how strong you are without us."

"And you call yourself a spy," said the doggy voice.

"Look whose talking son-of-a-bitch!"

The loud voices had gotten out of hand but such an intonation of Master Long had cooled their nerves, even mine. "That's enough," he said austerely. It gave me tickles of glee just listening to him. "Remember why you came here. I can see that this duplicate of me is roaming around causing chaos but arguing about it isn't going to help us any."

Not long, the roaring and growling had stopped to this. My ears had carried me back onto the surface of the watery door as the voices of the three people had settled. But it was useless. The murmuring was too low to understand even if the door was wide open. The only few words I was to make out was, "tomorrow" and "She mustn't know about this." Whatever were they to continue to talk about; I found the interest of me to continue listening had faded from existence. Several feet had padded around and soon some doors were shutting. I yawned hugely while stretching my aching muscles.

"So Master Long has some issues with his family," said I while walking to the coziest corner I could find, "I'm sure it'll settle by tomorrow. Until then, I should be counting the next three days before I get out of this 'cage'." Resting my head upon my crossed arms like a pillow and arching my legs for comfort and warmth, I had already dozed off to sleep.

By the seventh day that morning, a scent of buttered eggs, sweet toast, and apples were all I could picture before I found the truth lying in front of me. Beyond the boundaries of the sizzling food, Master Long was looking at me with a smile. _There he goes with that smile again. _I looked down at what was really to be a desirable wish from up above. My nostrils flared with the smell of breakfast and, before I knew it, I picked up the fork, dug it into the textured eggs and took a long chew before swallowing. It was like _heaven_. The butter texture and hot steam filling my tongue so delightfully extravagant that I could have fallen to the floor into a pool of eggs. "Finish up," said Master Long cheerfully before rising from his posture, "I have someone I like you to meet."

With a face full of toast and eggs in my mouth, I watched as he turned to the door and walked out. My way out of this "cage" was far too early than I had expected. But it didn't bother me any. I found this prize to be joyfully obscure but something buzzed in my head that told me what I was about to see I was not going to like it. Lifting from my place and striding my feet across the untouched floor, I merrily skittered from the hallway to the front room. Before me, when I got there, was a man and a woman.

The man was built all around; his dirty brown hair thickly rolling against his neck and a peculiar X-shaped scar between his eyes. His leather jerkin and motorcycle pants were the least I cared about. Aside from the annoyed man was a woman in style. She looked more like a model than any other occupation she attended. Her blond hair was a little much shorter than the man beside her and her blood-red lipstick glimmered from the sun. Again, the tickle-me pink model dress didn't worry me none. I searched in turns of finding Master Long sitting opposite the two. His posture was the same as everyone else: arms crossed over their chests and a very peevish look on their face. The silence was kind of stunning seeing how it wasn't quiet the night I heard the roaring and thundering. It was getting kind of annoying so I spoke with a point of the finger towards the man with a crossed scar.

"You're Yugo, right?" I asked in inquisitiveness. The man glared at me with an arched brow. I found it to be a threat to my questioning but I showed him no sign of my cowardice. "I knew it," he roared, "We should have spoken of this somewhere else."

"Oh Yugo, hush" said the lady tauntingly, "It's not her fault that curiosity came to her. Isn't that right, kitten?" It struck me dead in the jaw. _It's her! _I should have known from the beginning that the lady was the same person who bothered me last night. She smiled at me grimly and rose from her position. I stepped a couple of paces back but found my space quite tight around me seeing that I had accidentally bumped up against the wall. But she stopped.

"Well, Long? Aren't you going to introduce us?" said the lady in boredom. Now it was Master Long's turn. He strained himself up to his highest posture and surveyed everyone with one turn. Arising one arm in front of the peevish man, Master Long introduced, "This brash young man is Yugo Ohgami." Standing up, also, Yugo taunted flexing his muscles and leading himself to where I thought was the kitchen. "And this young lady is Jenny. She's the work of our achievement."

"Yes, yes, dear. We've met before," she said, kneeling down to my height, "Haven't we, kitten?"

"My name is Uriko." I said harshly. But even with a threat in my voice, she never showed a face of dishonor.

"So I've heard." Jenny stood her height once again and looked at Master Long in a business-like tone, "Now that that's settled, what are we going to do about our missions? We can't take turns baby-sitting with this brat."

"Hey!" It was already ticking me off that she tried to scare me half to death but the last thing I wanted to hear from her was a "brat". Unfortunately, her tone was clear when she didn't mean me.

"I meant Yugo, dear."

My face burned bright with grief. I wondered why Yugo was so peeved all the time, especially with Jenny around. "I've already taken care of that," said Master Long looking down at me with a smile, "I recalled that my student is the best missionary around. If we train her long enough, I think we are able to finish our missions much quicker than usual." I looked at the anklets around my wrist and found them to actually be of use. I haven't notice at first but the meaning of this whole lesson was to obtain the potentials of being a great fighter. Of course, I've already known that before I entered the dojo but the real reason was to overcome all obstacles. But the joy didn't last for long. When I looked up at Master Long again, he had two more iron bands gripped in his hands. It was coincidental guess that told me I was far away from my lessons, now. Slowly tip-toeing away from the conversation, I quickly turned my hills and ran for it. But Yugo was way ahead of me. Bumping into his belt buckle, I found myself back on the wooden floor. "And where do you think YOU'RE going?" he asked, jerking my collar so that I was back on my feet. I tried my hardest to squirm from his grip but it was no use. Jenny and Long had stopped their conversation and starred at me in amusement.

"I don't want anymore training," I yelled, trying to fight off Yugo at the same time, "I've already mastered the wristbands less than nine days, already. Cut me some slack, would ya!" From the start of the laughter around me, I was already too tired to be angry at them anymore. Feeling my feet touch the ground again, I slouched myself on a couch and took a breather.

"Awww. Isn't she so cute?" said Jenny childishly. Master Long stood in front of me and showed me the iron bands. "These are for me," he said to my relief, "I'll take off the ones you have on already after you've shown me what you can do." I wearily looked at him, then at my wrist bands. _It won't be long, he says. Alright… _Standing up right with a smile pasted on my face, I was now the attention of the crowd. "So what are we waiting for? Let's start our first mission!" It was a stun silence at first but I took it as more of a surprise. Yugo, not looking crossed anymore, had a risen eyebrow while Jenny was more impressed than ever. On the other hand, Master Long didn't look all that welcoming. But, before long, his smile surfaced on his face and it didn't take much time for him to say, "Alright. Since you put it that way, I'll file it down to this: If you can defeat either Jenny or Yugo, I'll cut you some slack." It was yet another miracle. Long adjusted my arms and the wristbands finally came off!

"So who will you choose?"

To be continued…

**Author's note:** This is not my decision. I'm leaving it up to the reader's to decide. That's right; the only way to consider this outcome depends on the fighter. It could be Jenny, or it could be Yugo. Heck! Maybe it can be Long again. But I'm not going to continue this story until someone tells me. The deadline is going to be July 20 before I tally up all the votes.


	5. Trial and Error

2

Chapter One, Part Five:

Trial and Error

So it was much of a hard decision to make, even if I wasn't going to be coward and accept the weakest of the three. If I happen to have waltzed the assessment of Jenny and defeated her, it would calm me enough to get back what she took from me: my pride. And for that, she wouldn't pester me anymore. Master Long has defeated me once before but that was only the first test. If I overpowered him, my pride would double in exchange of the metallic bands to fall away from my wrists forever. But Yugo; his attitude needed to be adjusted and it was up to a little girl to seduce him into thinking so. For some time, I have been thinking if he was actually a creature from within. In his eyes, I could have doubted my reasons of seeing a beast. Making up my mind for once, I parted my lips and said slowly yet doubtfully, "I don't know." Hearing plenty of breaths surpass as grief, I looked about myself with a shrug. So it was up to them to decide. "We'll play rock-paper-scissors for it," said Yugo with a voice of determination, "Loser has to duel with pipsqueak over there."

"I rather draw straws." Jenny said with a sigh.

"Sorry, Jenny," Master Long added while whipping his glasses with a clean cloth, "I'd have to go with Yugo on this."

My face was in a distortion either because Jenny and Yugo were eyeing each other as if they'd rather duel instead or that the buzzing in my head couldn't come to an end. The eerie sounds of someone hissing endlessly echoed throughout the room but no one noticed of it but me. As Yugo and Jenny had already begun their language massacre across each others face, I shifted myself into the clearing of the sands. It was bringing me to it. Every wave upon the oceans crashed and brought itself back pulling me along with it; and along every motion, I was dragged only to find myself against the window pane breathing heavily onto its cold surface. "Aw. Poor thing; she must be anxious," said Jenny childishly.

Her words were what made me feel a fool to stay stuck against the frost of the pane. Only the heave and moving chest was all I can do to respond to her comment. She was right. I was anxious in a way to make my body try to walk through the window while I knew well enough that there was no possible.

"It is first to be considered upon who she shall brawl against," said master Long with a reassuring voice though I could here impatience spurting within it. For only a few seconds, nothing was said except, "I'll challenge her." The voice was too concealed to be known of who said those three words. I wanted to turn quickly and see the figure of the guilty face who dared to even spurt those words but the more I tried to budge from the surface of the smoggy window pane, the more my face was drawn into it.

The waves and the crashing cacophony of the ocean were calling for me. I couldn't help but beckon to its call and approach closer into the surface so that soon my breathing skipped and my chest was pounding from the beat of my heart. I was a beast in the cage. I wanted the king to let me loose from my long enclosure within the darkened atmosphere and encourage me, along with me others, to prance and attack! And he would smile and adulate my actions by awarding me the fresh meat I have tenderized by my own will. But I was just the beast in the cage; still waiting.

"Are you sure it'll bring no worries to your thoughts?" said Master Long. By a long shot, I figured it wouldn't have been my master fighting me out in the beach. It was too obvious to even say he wanted to duel me in the first spot. His smile and taunting actions were good enough hints to tell me: _No_. _Master Long isn't going to fight me no matter the chances_. The anxiety within my breathing had lessened to a minimum and my once vibrant feed on being the beast in the cage and flustered from my head. I was just another hopeless student again, being tested against my will on if I was worthy to stay with the group that holds me in this living room. I guess it was upon my expectation that Long was going to fight me head on. Maybe I really wanted him to be my challenger among the others who have questioned my ability noiselessly. Maybe my way of thinking, seeing how it was opposite upon my actions exposed, wanted nothing better than a teacher being taught by a student.

The murmuring that I had once heard didn't surface me until the solemn thoughts had left me alone. Yugo and Jenny had their brawl upon who should do what in some kind of predicament. I wasn't quite sure of it. It was only Long's voice that didn't quite get to the far reaches of my gentle ears. His words, and may there be some sort of a wild language against my own words, were none but the chants of a prayer. My face popped from the window pane and my first look upon the living beings within the living room was just Master Long. His expression confused me just a little and to once say I saw a smirk when he said "discipline", it chilled me to know for once that he was the challenger and that I was just an amateur to his abilities, not the other way around.

The air was thickly smothered in mist and the rays of the sun sizzled in the sands as my feet were hot and crispy. Yugo apparently was wearing leather shoes as of I was bare to the feet. I've wondered ruthlessly if I could switch my freedom of arms for the freedom of my feet because the iron anklets were much better than the heat of the sun.

"Shall the fight begin?" announced Long in a loud monotone.

Simultaneously, he and I nodded our heads. "Then the rules are as simple: Survive!"

Steady and composed was yet to be the rhythm of my pace. I was steady. One foot after the other, the hot sands slither from my path, crumbling by the will. We seethe eye to eye, planning our actions of survival and defense. He jumps at me the assault lays behind him as I jolt to him in taunt. He growls; I hiss. By the stand off, feminine Jenny sluggishly crossed her arms and eyes us hills high while Master Long, thinking that he too was the opponent, stayed stern and silently aggressive. My patience couldn't stand as long well as his when the first thing I noticed was my feet being cooled by the airborne thrust. I was the beast once again. The cage had raised from its spot and the challenger surfaces me from below. I can see in his eyes the hindrance and discouragement surfacing upon every inch that I approach. But to once think I had the better of him and the smearing image came before Yugo and I was suddenly seeing the standing image of Master Long glowering at me with the most fiercest manifestation I bare to still stare into. So the battle hadn't begun but started before I knew the true fighter. It was he, the man I have known only much longer than I have known Jenny and Yugo put together, that wanted to face me with disarming candor. It was him, Kenji.

**Author's** **note**: Whoa! Hold the phone! Kenji's back? Yeah, isn't it surprising? That's why I stopped right here. I got to let you get a feel of this surprising event before I can continue on. So… hold your belt buckles (or straw straps) until I finished this part 2 chapter of Trial and Error. I haven't gotten around to it so don't expect it to come the next day. And while you're waiting for the update, think about what will happen next. Will Uriko and Kenji fight, will they kiss? Or will something occur during this time and mess everything up? Oops, I've said too much.

-**NEKOMARU**


	6. Killer Instincts Can Wait

4

Chapter One, Part Six

Killer Instincts Can Wait

I was like a fish without water: I couldn't breathe without the thought of seeing the once captured man standing right under me. My feet continuously glided through the air along with the flow of everything else that dithered from the sight of my one and only. He, among all the rest of them that were not stunned as I was, smirked with his spiky hair facing me and his index fingers pointing upward upon me. _Ninjutsu… _That word made my heart skip a beat. As the time of the flight had finally visited me once again, I lain one foot upon the crumbled dust and let the other swerve barely above the heated sands. I hoped to the best that I could pray that what was before me was just the sun playing tricks with my eyes for I knew deep down inside that there was no way Kenji was still alive. I've seen it with my own eyes that he was fluttering away from my presence. I've heard it with my own ears that he murmured such little words – Little one – to me; and I've touched him as he had touched me before setting off into the wonders up above. This guy _couldn't _have been Kenji. He jumped above my leg as I thickly shattered the palm tree that was behind him the whole time. _CRACK! _Both the tree and my foot were blistered in half. Only it was my foot that was still attached and not my ankle.

"Did you see how he glided away from that kick?" I heard Jenny murmur to Yugo who was now in a safe distance from the fight, "If I was out there, he wouldn't be able to see it coming." Standing only an inch above me, Kenji had already lowered close enough to connect me with one of his swaying kicks and, unlike mines, it had landed upon its rightful target. All I could hear was bells ringing across every side of my face. Stars spurted from the darkness and the little maggot-like bells were endless. The side of my face grazed the hot dirt and the once painful crack of my foot had lifted from its significance. From a distance, I could faintly hear his warrior cry advancing my way so, as many would do while on the ground, I whirled to the side and balanced upon my one, attached foot. I could see, from the corner of my eye, Master Long wasn't at all so proud of me when he was looking at me on the thickened sands.

His scowl, amongst the ones he usually gave me after I knew his true character, were endlessly pale and all-the-way unforgiving. That same scowl was what made me stand to both my feet, dust myself off, and try again. Determination crawled around my veins like jets of blood to my heart. Kenji, or so my eyes said he was, wasn't breathless neither showing any sign of getting attacked. His only response to my get-up was a simple taunt of the hand; telling me to come forward to him and try again. I nodded with a simple placement of my smirk and taunted as well, releasing an "mreowr" in advance.

"That's my little kitten!" I heard Jenny roar. Apparently, she was more upon my side than on Kenji's. My arms which were unconfined from the grip of the iron ankles were much lighter than I had imagined. The drapery of my very long sleeves glided by the wind's command and the palms that were juxtaposed fluttered lifelessly each at its turn. Kenji still didn't show any sign of weariness but the look of disruption were somewhere in his eyes for he did not know whether I was fooling with his mind or taking my time to start an attack. That's how I wanted him to think. _Don't be predictable. Don't always use one attack. Out-smart the enemy. _These words repeated gently with the breeze. And as it may guide the waters, it guided my arms slowly.

He thrusts onward of me; only his head was first and the wavering of his arms last but I saw what was coming before me all the same. My left leg skittered to the side and I twirled like a ballerina on gravel. Only the sway of Kenji's fist breezed my sleeves and so his back was facing me. I could tell without him turning around that he was bemused of the action because his stance was still with that one fist. Taking advantage of this time, I did what Kenji mistakenly had done in front of me, plunged, and so I jumped a few feet and locked my legs onto his neck also driving him to the sands. His face kissed the dirt thoroughly though my legs were still locked tight. Flipping myself over so that he was on top of me and I still clinging to his rattled neck, my right foot let loose and guided my left foot to boot the back of my rivalry. He flew, flailing too close to the crashing oceans before regaining his steady pose on the ground. Dust covered him everywhere from head to knee. And to my utmost bewilderment, he was breathless.

Jenny kept cooing behind me ear. She and Yugo were booing and cooing but the noise was just the same as Master Long's silence: It didn't bother me none. They were none but the wind in my ears; and so that same wind conducted me again. Only this time, it put me upon all my fours like the cat that I was. This made Kenji smile though the strain of keeping it cool was still within him. "Tis each his own." He spoke softly with these words and, as I blinked only a little, his figure was replaced with a levitating log. I glanced to my side, twirled so that if he was coming from either side I would find him but he was no where in sight. Not even from above was he there.

Jenny screamed. I turned and there before me, an over-sized mole with the thickest blades of claws was charging toward me. The encounter excited my heart only too long for me to dodge what was coming at full speed. Its claws took my breath away before I could gasp and stand back. Its pearly red eyes glistened devilishly and the thick, mouse-like whiskers tickled me upon my breathless ribs. But though those three seconds had come and gone, it was upon my astonishment that it was Kenji playing with my head. He was before me, smirking more grandly than he had previously. Palm tree leaves surrounded our feature for we whistled into the sun-bathed air higher as the power of Kenji's velocity took upon my wavering. He vanished from my sight with only the leaves for me to see and thrashed my bare back heartlessly; letting me fling closer to the ground with such speed but he didn't let me down just yet.

Thrusting me in the gut, swaying me over to the next side of the beach and holding me tightly around his slender arms, he and I were plunging back down onto the ground. I knew he was going to disappear again so I only thought quickly yet in a slapdash fashion to furnish my arm tightly around him and clasped my eyes tight. His wriggling for freedom told me that he wasn't going any where and that his ninjutsu couldn't breathe away from me.

The crashing oceans and the silent scream of Jenny were what surfaced upon me before the icy coolness bubbled against my skin. I was back in the water in which brought me upon this beach in the first place and I had no way to break from it.

"I have repeated upon Yugo not to bring him but he did it anyway." It was only Master Long's voice that came upon my ears. "He shouldn't have – it wasn't her time." A steaming hot rag dapped upon my forehead several times before I noticed where I was. My arm was strapped tightly as if the same person who treated my ribs was the one who did my left arm as well. My eyes strained but it wasn't from the rays of the sun for it was night when my eyes wandered to the window aside of me.

"You've been asleep for some hours, Uriko." Master Long had stopped dabbing the hot rag upon my forehead and strolled nearer toward the cracked mirror on the dresser. His iron bracelets were gone and the suit he used to wear during the battle was now a long white robe with white slacks.

"Who won?" I asked only to think of the fight other than my health. Master Long had halted from his place while still fiddling around with his iron bracelets. His silence could only tell me that he was dearly upset about the short battle Kenji and I had gone through; but my prediction was counterfeited for Master Long was taking a much longer time resting his bracelets. I got up to my feet and felt the slender sheets follow me. I placed my strap-free arm upon his broad shoulders and patted gently. I didn't know why I did it but something told me that Master Long wasn't feeling well so someone had to comfort him. It soothed me too that there was comfort among us but I didn't go any further than that. The thought of hearing Jenny repeat those words, "What'll happen if you and Long slept on the same bed?" crawled around back like a worm drawing down an apple's core.

"I don't want to lose you just like I lost her," Master Long heaved with a rather hard throaty voice. I thought for second. _Did Master Long have another disciple who fought the same man? _Those cracked lines around the mirror showed most of the evidence but I doubted my senses that it was he who fought the woman. _No. It couldn't be; not Master Long. He's too…_

"It is because of this power that tore us apart. The one they called a _Zoanthrope_." Long turned towards me with that face of silent determination and sustained goals. That was the face that scared me most of the time. When once I heard the word "Zoanthrope", it had seemed I've heed the word before from another place not so far from the oceans; that same place from which Commander Gado and I had our little chat. It was that word he described me to be when most of the shelled guards were at the mercy of their lives.

I tugged gently on the robes of Master Long and waited for him to look down at me. I said to him with a sweet voice, "What power do we possess that makes you so mad, Master?" He looked at me with the smile and said nothing to this; so I continued. "Is it what Kenji became when we fought? Are we all like that?" I was such a little one, too little, to understand the difference between the word "human" and "zoanthrope" for they were the expressions that only made a person, if not an animal, whither at the word. Master Long glowered upon me like he had never done before. It was more like he was looking through me than at me because his eyes neither focused nor starred into mines.

"Unfortunately," he said airily as I slowly took baby steps back from his heated aroma, "And it is further shoddier to think the Tylon Corporation is using little infants as the best weapon they have."

"The Tylon Corporation?" I said in amusement while not really paying attention to the reaction Long had on his face: which was horrorstruck and unbelievable. "You mean those lousy bugar faces and the entrepreneur? I dealt with those wanna-bees a loooong time ago. Well, not THAT long." At that point, I wasn't sure whether I was in for a real beating in the head or Master Long looked like he was really going to kill me. He held me tightly by the little shoulders that I had and squeezed like he was afraid they were going to run away. He starred deeply and deadly onto my umber eyes. For a moment, though I was a bit breathless to tell, his face was of some resemblance to a _tiger_.

"You listen to me good, Uriko," thundered Master Long as he shook me by the shoulder with great force. I nodded kind of limply as he continued, "You can NOT force yourself to think that the Tylon are only weak because they lack fighting ability. They have something more dangerous than any army put together. And it will KILL any it lays eyes on. Unfortunately, that special force they have is…." There was a loud knock on the door. It scared me a little but my senses were back to that awestruck expression when Master Long released my shoulders and headed toward the front room.

His thundered voice kept booming in my head. His glowering and nerve-ending expression kept surfacing to my mind. I couldn't shake it away at any chance I had. It was _frightening_. But beyond all that was said and witnessed, only the incomplete sentence was what drove me away from the ravaging Long. _A special force in the Tylon Corporation. _I didn't remember meeting face to face with the "special force" nor did I hear Gado mention of it when he was on his knees. I shook my head lazily. That knock on the door came around the wrong time for this moment; and right before I knew what Master Long was about to say!

"Uriko!" I heard Master Long roar from afar, "Go in the dojo and get the first aid kit!" His voice sounded a bit shaken as if carrying some large specimen over his shoulders. But to me, I thought that little talk that we had must have weighed him down to the core just like it had done me. Turning my hills and heading back behind the halls further away from the living room Master Long and the visitor was within, I fetched the first aid as ordered. I passed the animal frames a couple of times, forgetting what I left and going back to get them, and wondered endlessly of the solemn words Master Long drilled in my head. _Zoanthrope… special force…_ As I headed down the hall to give the first aid to Master Long, the smell of fresh blood was beginning to fume the way. My pace quickened, and my heart raced a bit as I drew closer to my destination.

"Uriko! Hurry!" yelled Master Long. My pace came from quickening to skipping to running as fast as I could. The complete thought of wanting to know what the "special force" was drove away like it had never existed. All I wanted to know now was what was bleeding profuciously beyond the hall. I could see the door smothered with bloody fingers prints, wailings were echoing across the room and into the hall, a bunch of bombardments had begun, and soon a yell erupted from beyond. I almost tumbled over my feet a couple of times as I was hurrying on. But I couldn't react fast enough to catch myself and I tumbled over along with the first aid crumbling against my face.

As I had lain there, feeling foolish and clumsy all the same, a hand snatched the bag from my grip and hammered away toward the living room. Its fingers were wet to the spot! I jolted my head up and stood to my feet quicker than I had time to finish my way down the all and into the living room. One step closer to the view yet I was so far for Jenny, crying so bad that her purple makeup around her eyes was smearing all around her teary face, crumbled to her knees in front of me and forced my face onto her sweaty shoulders. She had a damp tissue was in one hand while a sticky red substance was smeared around her other.

"My kitten, please," cried Jenny though I couldn't hear quite well considering that her neck and shoulders were covering my ears, "please don't look that way. Don't look, _please_." I wanted to know what was beyond the halls so bad but I felt a bit weary by Jenny's voice as though to reject the thought of looking onward. I could only hear:

"Calm down. The bleeding will never stop unless you stop moving."

"Aaaaaaarrrrrgggghhhh! The lights. Get them away from me!"

"No! You shouldn't move around or else you'll burn yourself. Calm DOWN."

It was just agonizing howls and tranquilizing words that came across my ears; that and the murmuring of Jenny's cries. I shuddered vigorously as I stood there within Jenny's grip. Whoever was there, it was my deepest doubts that it was Yugo, the cries were just too much to bare. I tried countless times to break free from the grip, but Jenny held tighter around my neck and dared not to let loose.

I heard another set of footsteps. It had been pacing ever since it came from the hall.

"Crying and feeling guilty of your will won't change anything, Hungarian," said a voice that sounded too familiar, "We have worst things to think about right now."

Feeling Jenny's arms slowly releasing only long enough for me slip free, I took the chance. My eyes leveled everywhere – the ceiling, the walls, the blood – and finally it had lain upon a man with mane-like hair, a patch on his right eye, and an army suit that fitted his status. He looked at me levelly and continued down the hall as if not caring if my presence was beyond his belief as well with mines.

"Gado!" I gasped. He didn't respond. My feet were like jelly now but the walls were good enough to keep my support. Jenny wasn't so far behind from my reactions and held me by my arms as I tried to charge at the entrepreneur. I couldn't let him get away from me. Our fight was yet to be to the end! I wanted to but I couldn't; it was my only chance but that chance was sliding faster than I could pull. He disappeared from the halls and into the kitchen; I had given up and looked back at the living room. The blood was just smears of paint to me now. I looked down at Jenny who was still crying on her knees. It looked as if she, too, had given up on holding me back and let me slowly yet hesitantly walk into the living room.

The blood trails continued. All I was able to hear now was both the wailings of Jenny and the sprawling figure. The couch came into view, then the table, then the back of Master Long. My heart may have skipped a beat a couple of times but that didn't do a thing to my actions. The smell of sizzling raw meat began to escape through my nose and a wisp of the visitor was only partially seen.

My feet cushioned each step as I advanced behind the heaving shoulders of Master Long just to find in front of him a weak young man, younger than Long, covered deeply of bare organs and blood. Most of him was strapped with blood-stained bandages while other parts of him were turned inside out. When I stood there half bemused and justified by the outcome, the man's lash less eyes grew wide by the sight of me. His teeth chattered slowly due to the fact that he didn't have lips and the little skin that he had around his chin and cheek were molding away.

"He's one of the victims," said Master Long through a sorrowful air, "the greatest scientist of the Tylon Corporation and this is what they have done to him." Though the insides of my stomach took pity upon the carcass, there was something in me, something that told me: _What would he do if I was in his shoes? _It was a simple answer though it was hard to tell if it was the right thing to do. I asked gently to Master Long as I grabbed the first aid kit from under my foot, "What's his name?"

"His name is Steven Goldberg," said Jenny in the most of her tears as she approached from within the hallway. She settled herself nearest to the door where the couch stood beside and began sniffling while she talked, "Goldberg originally worked for the TC until he discovered their plans just like I and Gado had done. But, unlike us, Goldberg didn't get away with it and, as a punishment; he was injected with an experimental compound devised by his college." Every word except the name "Gado" and "Goldberg" did not surface my ears. It was hard enough to think that Alan Gado was part of Master Long's team the whole time let alone the fact that Steven Goldberg worked for the Tylons.

In my head, I scorned the thought of having a Tylon worker heaving every agonizing breath in the house of the liberty but through my features I only approached a little closer to the disintegrating body of Goldberg with a burden. Now, with a towel in one hand and a bag of ice in the other, I aided the stranger as if he was my child. And, unlike Master Long's technique, I wrapped his limps slowly and loosely just so his body could still move with the bandages strapped to him. Master Long was a bit skeptical of my behavior but the nice grin was all the same. I hummed, and soon Goldberg wasn't in much agony any more.


	7. Trial and Error 2

3

Chapter One, Part Seven

Trial and Error 2

Before she was ever to finish her adorning hymn, Apprentice Uriko had lain to rest just as Steven Goldberg had done the same. Her form, though sprawled in many places to keep intact the coolness of the hardened floors, was somewhat stern as though a hint of battle was coming her way. Its diversion was at the brink of her thought though I could still witness her battle among young Kenji continuing as though it had never ended. I only warded my eyes away from her vulnerable figure and finally attached myself to something of more importance: our mission.

"Has she fallen asleep already?" Alan Gado said with deprive of the bandages within Uriko's sagging hand.

"In a sense," I responded with a question that gave Jenny the benefit of the doubt. She spoke in turn, "What is about her slumber that makes you so anxious, Hun?"

He starred at me though to whom he was speaking to was another figure, "We are preparing our first discussion of the ZLF. First topic off: Uriko's death. She has to be dealt with or else the Ultrathrope will take shape beyond her control and cause a riot of chaos."

"You wouldn't dare. She's just a child!" cried Jenny, her masquera lining down her cheek and giving her an impression of Shakespeare's crying face in the shadows. Her hills clattered across the floor as she gripped around Gado's pinstriped collar, advanced him closer upon her face and, while I arose to stop her action, raised her free hand to smite the man. And as I had said before, I arose to stop the malefactor from swiping the truthful words of Alan Gado.

I could feel within my stern grip, Jenny's arm tugging every now and then in means of both being released and trying to inch closer of the man's face.

"Not here," I said monotonously, "Not until this discussion is finalized."

"I don't mean by my actions alone," Gado heaved without any significance of eyeing Jenny from atop of him, her trembling wrist still trying within every effort to reach for him. It had only continued on with this state of feat until Gado spoke these explicit euphemisms: "How long has it been since that hand caressed my face, Jenny? Do you not recollect the power we shared after that incident?"

"You shut it! You shut it right now!" yelled Jenny as she drew free from my grip and averted her sight of face from us. It was hard to hear her murmuring, then, but it had seemed she spoke about their incident in a settlement of giggles. Whatever was she to say, Goldberg had joined the triumphant laughter hereafter though there was some manifestation within the skinless heap on the couch.

"Still," I interrupted, "We are in need of this discussion to be concluded. It is getting late." I turned my attention to Gado who apparently couldn't withstand the air of my presence for he, a man of noble and courageous status, neither glimpsed nor glanced directly upon me. It was as though he _feared _me.

By seconds past, Jenny advanced toward the closest sofa of the three, arising Uriko's limp-like body and placing the sleeping juvenile upon her lap, cradling her like a baby being rocked to sleep. I found this amusement somewhat unsettling for the picutre beyond the picture, the object I sought beyond the females' edifice, was the sanguine in which Sir Goldberg had left behind as a welcome in present. The clumsiness of such a spill throughout the floors had overthrown my emotions into almost hanker of enticement that it had seemed too clean and abstract to be such a substance.

My bones quavered unseeingly as I starred amongst the stippling colors. Gado and Jenny already began their debate without my notability as I, feeling my ribs bending by the force of my engorging heart, shuffled my fingers slowly away from my settled lap and toward the dripping life. Its form: splattered lyrically of past cries from the veins; its purpose: life contained by the life given; and to what theme did it remind me was none but the assassinations Tylon assigned for me. Yes, I was once with those heartless beings and it is to one's astonishment that I was the best of them all. But, although I fret not to confront it, it was not I who was the ultimate weapon. Deep within the boundries of the science labs and testing areas, I came across a room (and do forgive me of my curious actions for I thought it was my usual route back to my dormitory) in which was flooded with children in metal cages and metal chains. It was at that moment Hans, the leader of the whole organization, did not want me snooping around. And it was to that day that I would discover the true meaning of what they were going to do with those children. I have proof in front of me: Uriko.

"Well ain't THAT a fact!" blathered Jenny over my ears. To my vision, she had stirred up her anger once again, this time, making her point upon Uriko facing against me in a battle. "Just because he USE to be part of the organization doesn't mean he's still their pet. I mean, come on, he's on our side now. It doesn't matter whether he killed because it was his job; I say we leave that subject alone and stick with something else."

Her words were somewhat sourer than it was sweet on the fact of being on my side. The organization and I were like comrades on the last mission: we were afraid to part from each other at the end. Who would survive? Who would die? I treated my job like it was my _soul. _If it had dissipated, I would flow with it. She took up for me but even if it was at that, I felt more vulnerable at the heart than ever. They spoke of me like I was never there; as if I had gone to another room that nullified all sounds from the outside but I was there, listening dully to every word while bringing back the horrid memories of my time in Tylon.

"It is evident enough that those two are to be rivalries to the finish – Long Singh and Uriko Nonomura. They long for the battle of pride and inevitability. Just look at _him. _His cold eyes stay like they are even before he left the organization. What reason would he not destroy Uriko one day?" Gado took his turn saying these words. As an assassin, we can title out the personality within a victim's plea no matter how monotonous it would sound and reason with them by death. They ask us anything and we would only give them the same answer: It's my job. To my love, Aeka, I have told her those same words before it was too late.

What I may recollect was only mere images of the past. The more I try to think on that time, the more faded it would seem until, one day, I will never see it again. I will never see _her _again. Her eyes was butter pecan brown, her hair leveled slightly over her shoulder with strings of gray and fulfillments of jet black and blue like an old hound dog but her face and the rest of her features were as young as the blossoms in spring. Before we met, she was my next victim. My objective was to know as much as I can about her to claim possession of her things after death but soon I had grown to like her and then grew attached into loving her. Many times I would come back with false statements about Aeka at the corporation and they'd buy it. Only, they got suspicious when I came back with a happy mood. I shouldn't have _smiled_.

By then I had to confess to her; tell her why I was really interested in her life other than passion. She wasn't at all upset but she gave me advice to "quit". I didn't take it too lightly and neither did the organization when I wanted to get out. That day when I saw the concern and sorrow within her eyes, it reminded of another victim… just another victim on my list.

Months had passed and I was getting anxious. I didn't shed a single blood from anyone else for weeks and it was getting to me. Aeka began to ask of my whereabouts every time I left the campus until that one night she couldn't stand my departure and held me by the door where I couldn't get out. It was in the emergence room where I usually kept Uriko to tend to her wounds and the night was young. How foolish she was. She knew of my aptitude and what I would do if she brought me to the brink. Why did she test me?

I can see it only faintly. She yells at me to stop but I couldn't withhold such enragement that I threw the only thing that kept my saneness: the iron bracelets. To that point, the mirror had shattered where Aeka's face ought to be. The anger was growing though I had no way of stopping it; her face became the one of a victim's. To this, I could not disappoint my instincts. I had to kill her. Those words kept running in my head, "You HAVE to kill her. It's your JOB, Long!"

"Long… LONG!" a voice boomed within me. I jolted and almost forced myself upright but it had seemed to my astonishment that I was already upon my quavering feet. I turned, having to think of pseudonyms to cover my actions, and met face to face with the ones that cowered invisibly against the couches.

"The blood sickens me," I said by truth but then by lie, "I'm going to fetch a mop, if it doesn't bother any of you. Continue on with your words."

For years I have been an elite assassin and the thought of showing any emotional features that assumed to be troublesome did not faze me. I was immune to this thus the two, Jenny and Gado, who inspected me where I stood, could not tell of my concern. My feet lifted one after the other as I strolled down the darkened hallways and into miniature library where I kept most house cleaning utilities. Though it was to that place that I would actually go, I falsely walked my way to the patio in which led to the beach ahead. And there, I would find the source to my memories, the woman whom had always caused the Zoanthrope within me to emerge intensely; the woman who instructed me to kill Aeka.

As it was from years ago, the moon was high and the night was young. The busy streets beyond the beach were faintly heard from afar though I could tell what was going on like it was around the corner. The quiet murmurs from inside the house had continued on even if I dared not to listen to any more of my name. It was far enough to have me accused of Apprentice Uriko's future slaughter due to me. The night was warm. Even by the ocean's breeze, it wasn't cool enough to stop the sweats from pouring across my brow. It was far too quiet for her to not show herself in front of me, then.

"Out with you, being. My patience is somewhat thinning from this concealment which I seem to have trouble with. And it is your presence which makes it want to break out for the slaughter of blood." I said though it wasn't my feet I was talking to. Smog of air consumed my feature for the figure I have been waiting countless minutes to be viewed had emerged in its usual existence of _a child_. My eyes were burning bright like the moon engraved in the sky. To this moment that I knew would come, to this time I knew would halt for me, I arisen my hand in means of the battle to start for the figure before me was as ready as I was. The tiger transpires…

Gado and Jenny had been speaking about the future death of Uriko for while until they came upon the subject of Long who has obviously been missing for some time. They call out his name but nothing seemed to have responded until thunders of bombardment emits through the walls. The first place they were to think to go was outside and so they rush quickly, leaving Uriko behind. They approach outside to find Long fully enraged as a ten foot tiger. In astonishment, they try to control the Zoanthrope but they had failed. Even in their beast forms, they had lost the first battle. Stephen Goldberg, as beat up and bloody as he was, came forth and revealed to the others HIS true form which was the shape of the beetle. Long story short, the tiger and the insect fought like there was no tomorrow, warding themselves to the city where Gado and Jenny follow not so far behind. Thus, Uriko is home alone; having no one looking after her nor watch her. To be continued…


	8. Deepest Scrunity

Chapter One, Part Eight:

Deepest Scrutiny

_For an hour, or may it be seconds, I stand enclosed inside this little body. I can neither seek nor dispute what is within the outside world so I lay here patiently for the time to come for my release. And as this time passes, I only hear what will call on me soon: the screams and the tantalizing agony of pain. I know she is there, feeling mute and emotionless of the screeching words but what she doesn't know is what power she possess for I was the one who helped her through the oceans and I was the one who fought the little insects so-called the Tylons._

_To her, the power of an Ultrathrope was far beyond her control but to me, I wanted more. She just has to get use to not seeing the action but FEEL it. I want her to DANCE at my will and become my puppet as I use her form to become mine. Though, in a sense, I feel a power so weak even I cannot bare its existence. It is her feline ego that I am mostly concerned about. If she continues to stay with Long Singh, MY existence will fade and another will take my place thus making HER invulnerable and controllable at her own will. I can't let that surpass. But, I seem to recollect that it is Long Singh's alter ego and co-ego which keeps her from peace. It is that person, though I may hate his seduction as much as she does the same, who calls himself the new leader of the Tylon…._

_SHEN LONG…_

I awoke from my sweaty palms mostly breathless and alert. Those words I heard were not mine nor were the feelings that I felt as she spoke. I shuddered to my knees, finally noticing that my head was upon the couch Stephen Goldberg was resting his aching limbs, and climbed up to my feet slowly to know Goldberg was not present at all. The room was dead silent. Only the sound of the ticking clock against the wall echoed throughout the entire living room and hallway. I arose, feeling feverish and chilled of the voice all the same, and looked about the kitchen and hallways to see if everyone had left me again.

I skittered to the kitchen; the dishes were just as messy and untidy, the floors were swept though some significance of blood was still about, and the drawers were all open. _Nobody… _I checked in the bedroom in which Master Long took me in when I needed medical attention but no one was there either. It was just the wavering of the curtains being fluttered by the gust of the wind and the broken lines on the mirror being shuttered by the breeze.

"He's running away from you, Uranus," said a voice. I starred hard with turbulence beyond the gusting breeze, actually believing that it was the wind that spoke to me. Maybe it wasn't, but I was unsure so I crawled closer inside the bedroom. It couldn't have been a Tylon nor was it Alan Gado for the voice I heard was more feminine and petite such as mine.

"Who's there?" I whispered with my diminutive voice but there was no appearance. The wind brushed harder against the curtains and the voice came back:

'_The GREAT Zoanthrope who escaped from the Tylon Corporation.' Oh, I applaud to thee. Very good young Ultrathrope but just because you escaped from the retched Tylons doesn't mean you can escape from me._

I turned around ruthlessly. The voice was steadily getting closer but I could neither see nor sense the presence of this female figure. It wasn't Jenny. Certainly, she would have approached behind me just like before and call me "kitten" not "Uranus".

"Master! Jenny! Somebody!" This was the first time I felt afraid to be alone. I needed someone to be before me; somebody who was flesh and bone so that I was able to know I was not just hearing things. But no one came. The calming winds were calling me again though the voice of the female did not flutter to me. The crash of the oceans was hypnotizing me again and there was no one to hold me by the shoulders and ask what I was doing anymore.

My heart hammered loudly. It literally forced me to the window in which the ocean was able to be seen from and made me press my soft cheek against the wall beside the window. But it wasn't long before my face wasn't upon the wall anymore and now I was stepping out of the window and into the breezy wind, climbing up upon the pane with the fluttery drapery of my white nightgown, and blindly reached atop Master Long's unbearably tall domicile.

The night was cold but the coolness did not surface to me. The call grew louder within me. Though the voice was unforthcoming and indistinctive, I treated it like it was a command I could not walk away from. Soon, without my notice, I found myself atop the roof of the house while the terrain around me was lifeless though I was the only living thing around at the time.

I could see it now, Master Long looking about the house in search of me, asking Stephan Goldberg and anyone else who was still in the house if they had seen me and they would shake their heads plainly. It was a cliché I could commend with and it was that kind of action Master Long would do if I wasn't around. As I stood there, blank and emotionless due to the calling winds in my ears, the cirrus clouds soon became bulbous and slowly covered the starry sky like a napkin on a wet counter. The crescent moon was much smaller and further away than when it was full but its gravitational pull risen my chin up to the air nevertheless.

The pace of my breathing was getting smaller. It was as though somebody or something was grasping inside my lungs and holding it tighter as I stood there. I wanted to cry out for any assistance but my voice had dispersed from its existence. I was being captured again! The thunder began to emit and soon I couldn't take in another breath. The essence of the night sky had taken a hold of me.

In my mind, I fluttered lifelessly across the dimension between the ground and the air but through reality, I was only an inch above the roof, letting the winds pick me up and twirl me slowly to oceans and sands of the beach. It was somewhat delighting, having only myself to be comforted and the night coolness take me in when I was lonely. It was one of those things I wanted to last forever. As I swirled fluently on the tips of my toes with the winds keeping me from tipping off the edge of the roof, a sudden interest had caught the corner of my eye; and as I watched this figure, my pupils grew wide in both fright and relief.

Not far from where I stood or where the house of Long was built at, a young figure about my age was covered with a black woven suit. The only things that glimmered within the darkness were the golden buttons lining down his skin tight shirt. My mind said "Kenji" but my words fluttered lightly with a hint of reprieve, "Bakuryu."

He looked at me, the golden brown pupils that I once saw in my ventured dream, and approached close to the domicile only being able to see me from down below. He looked just as hypnotized as I was but there was something in him that gave me the impression of him wanting to howl in pain. His eyes were fixed on me and they wouldn't move from any other direction.

_He is not looking onto you but onto me that I am now present from this enclosed mind. You are no longer an existent of this world and so I take every valuable feature of you. You can do NOTHING._

I didn't want to believe this echoing voice so I tried to prove her wrong by moving my arm to reach for Kenji but nothing seemed to have happened. I neither felt nor saw a single limb of the arm arise to my sight and, instead, it stood still. I tried thinking hard, wanting to move my lips to see if any words have flown. I couldn't do so. The echoing voice was right: I was not in control.

The oceans were roaring and stood upon each other angrily; the winds had grown wicked with force and soon the entire terrain was only a few storms in one. It was upon this terrain that the thunder clouds and crashing oceans were most likely to be heard. None were from my actions neither were the essence of the power that devoured me transparently.

"Come, Bakuryu," said I though it was not my voice these words were coming from, "Let you and all the Zoanthropes be devoured by my essence for I am the blue moon and you are the wolf who bawls at me. Cast off your withered skins and be reborn with the subconscious features you were meant to become!" These enchantments were limitless for the voice itself was good enough to be succumbed by the ability of those words. In the harbinger's eyes, I could see Kenji finally revealing the pain he had been holding back ever since he laid eyes on my genuine edifice. His head threw back and the once glowering yellow eyes were now rotund red and the fingers that use to grip humane substances was only good enough to claw the bowels of every living being.

I could hear from afar the other Zoanthropes howling in the same persecution as Kenji for they did not have control over their inflamed human structure. I would only wonder ruthlessly upon how much pain Long could be in if he were a Zoanthrope such as the other unlucky likings. I only watched, or rather it be the other being, motionlessly as each withering feature of Kenji took shape into the same red-eyed mole I once fought before this day.

By this moment, I was in dire need of assistance. I needed someone, something, to halt me in my place and stop the force which controls me and all the Zoanthropes upon the earth. And it was at that moment my prayer was heard for the voice I heard then was neither mine nor the inner being; it was another.; someone of an older age. He said only solemnly: "Come fly with me, into the depths of the darkness. And when we fly forth from it, the light shall show within your eyes and onto the moon."

"And while I'm there?" I whispered as though to be afraid of the answer. He inched closer upon me, his chest caressing against my back as I shuddered because of his movement. His voice softened and the sound had deepened down my heart like a larva digging into it.

"Never forget me." He said in my ear, his silver hair I could see from the corner of my eye. _Silver? _I turned, having to just look at the figure that stood behind me so decipherable that my mind fooled me for only a few seconds. But… no one was there. I looked back, Kenji still upon his beast form. Though it was just a face of a mole, there was a sense of grimace on his face.

_Who was that? _The voice asked me. _What is going on, here? This isn't right. Where is this power coming from! _ The voice couldn't withstand the images of others as they surfaced inside our heads. Kenji, the Tylons, the little girl, the man who had saved me from the ocean the first time, and now the silver-haired figure were appearing out of no where. It was, then, their voices we were beginning to hear: "Stand before me, little one", "Bring her down the warpath!", "Save the child's teddy, thy soul that makes me whom I am", "Once I capture your heart, your master will be the one to destroy the earth next time.", "Never forget me."

"Who are you and what do you want from me?" I cried, knowingly that it was my voice this time, and tried to my fullest to keep my head together. I couldn't figure out this riddle that kept popping in my head. I didn't know why it was there, where did it come from, or when it'll stop flooding my head. I curled from where I stood, my arms wrapped around my knees and my head deep within them. I wanted to find the light of guidance. I needed something to unscramble the puzzle and tell me right: Why is this happening to me?

Beyond the voices that were as loud as the crashing waves, a croaky voice emitted hoarsely. It was Kenji. The fading existence of the woman's voice was beginning to take affect and to think it was my doing, it wasn't. I was starting to calm down as well but the noise didn't let loose from my head. I only thought: What is the meaning? And for these words, the light of guidance had shown for the simple words were replacing the plenty of murmurs. _Obedience, war, possession, deception, and memory. _Though these words were just as simple as molding a boulder with your bare hands, I still couldn't decipher the meaning of them all.

"Little sister… Little Uranus. The only way you can find your answer is if you come with me into the future. There, we can destroy those voices digging deep within our minds." I knew he had come back to me, the silver-haired being. What bothered me was his voice. It was as if I heard it somewhere before. Somewhere from… the lake?

"I don't want to. I just want to know what it all means." I whimpered, still cuddled within my knees.

"You DON'T have a choice, little sister. It'll be us against them. We'll fight them until there are no more voices."

"For this result, say that it is us against _you_." Our chatter was going completely no where. I had no idea upon who this being was signified nor did I concur with anything that he said. Whatever it was that he wanted from me, he was surely not to have it for I am in control now.

"I… OWN… YOU! I've saved you once and I can destroy you all the same." And then he soon said rather urgently, "Now come with me to the future so that our quarrel can be continued with a bit more understanding." He, then, threw out a hand of guidance; a hand that came, not from the heavens, but the disseverment of help. Not rising my head from my knees, I gently swapped away the guiding hand and said with my own pace, "I'll find a way to stop these voices and I'll do it without a shed of blood."

I heard a gurgle within the air and, therefore, I knew it was a growl from my rejection. "So be it. Remember the day you rejected your life, Uranus." He flutters lifelessly across the skies, unaware that he was vanishing right before me. And as he done so, I spoke, "my name is Uriko… you nasty stinking' poopie head who thinks he so cool." I arose from my stance, now, with a heart of a lion and the lungs of a tiger.

"Did you hear that dude! You can't bribe the 'cat'!" I stuck out my tongue and pulled one of my lower eyelids tauntingly. "Suck on this! Niehhhhhhhhhh!" And not knowing that I was leaning forward while blindly gibing my share of rude manners, to the sands I had flown. So clumsy was I, leaving, tip by tip, the surface of the rooftop in which I had once stood. Now, having no quick way to react, I dithered airborne unknowingly of what stars would stare and laugh behind my back; the stars in which were once brave warriors who suffered the same faux pas like me.

The air thickened, the night had gotten colder within every second of the breeze, and soon time stopped. My mind wondered while in this trance: How has he saved me yet again? And when I meant the being that saved me from the Tylons in the furthest beginning, it was that person who was before me now. His thickly-jetted black hair swaying from such a gust and golden eyes of determination were somewhat mesmerizing as he, having to leap quickly from where he stood, caught me by both his hands and landed me softly upon the white sands. Time raced by and soon I was lying in his arms dumbfounded.

Though he still had that grimace and, yes, my innocent confusion startled him just the same, I could feel a sense of passion beating roughly across his black ninja gi…

**Smoooooooth… Even though no other events had occurred, I still felt like this was the best between Kenji and Uriko's reunion. Check and chat playaz. (the new 'Read and Review' phrase -)**


	9. Water Thicker than Blood

**Chapter one, Part nine: Water Thicker than Blood**

They could tell me many times that death is nothing but a potent excuse to get away from the world they use to cherish but, to me, it is a curse that is forbidden to the Zoanthrope for they are inevitable by both bruise and blood. I, being one of those lucky beings from the birth of these creatures, still exist as a false theory. Look at what many has done to me now; a sheared arm, a ruptured rib, and a bleeding heart. Am I the only one who does not possess the gift of the inevitable?

As the rays of the sun soak upon me and the smell of the salty ocean fuming through my awakening nostrils, it was only one grip of a roughened hand that clasped around both the holes of my face. And with both to be affixed shut, I could only widen my eyes to see the attacker pulling me onward of the sands. _What is it that they want from me now? _I cried only in thought. With one hand and the other gripping this stranger's cold arm, there was no use to this but to scream though I knew from within that there was no way anyone could hear me out. The wisp of my vision was soaked by the tears that immersed from the corner of my burning eyes but, even with that, this person had no mercy upon me.

"I turn my back for one second," he began with an airy voice, a voice that I could've sworn on Kenji's grave I've heard once before, "And you're already in Japan. Just think, little one, that once I thought I'd never be as fated as you." His words, and may it be the words that I would hear before my awakening of a new beast, scraped my heart so gravely that I could feel it swell within me once again. The respiration that I needed so dearly than my life gushed from me. I could only grip him though I knew it wasn't going to help me any. Where was Master Long to be when I needed him the most?

I thought back on what he taught me from this sort of circumstance but nothing came to view. Only a few cunning words came to me: _Out smart the enemy. _I jolted my spine as much to stop the man from holding on to me any longer but that did not happen as expected; I wanted to bite him hard between the thumb and finger but his grip was too tight for me to open my mouth; I even tried to use both the dithered legs to wring around his arm but he, as I had thought would happen, gently nudged it away. Once we had entered into the domicile, my body had left the floors and squarely onto the bloody wall of the kitchen. Many knives and forks had fallen above me but it was pure stoke of luck that kept me from being penetrated from these prongs. My eyes now dried with a bit of sniffs, shuttered open. Has it been, until this time that long since we encountered each other by his savior?

I have heard his voice, witnessed his capability as an ultimate Experiment, and fought him from my dreams. Not once had I seen him fully in the bathing sunlight. His appearance, now, was meshed with the stress of the kitchen and living room floor. It was as though he fought a thousand islands and seven seas to come forth to me now as a man suited in black and red clothing, drenched and decorated with sand and seaweed. It was hilarious to find him at such a time but I still question myself if it was a dream I should look forward to awakening from.

"Do you find my appearance quite funny?" he asked with intrigue. I said nothing, keeping myself from thinking that he could read anything within my enclosed thoughts. "Then you wouldn't mind if I wonder around for more clothing."

Watching as he disappeared behind the hallway walls, I clambered to my feet, skittered down and out the door, espied beyond the walls of the sand and called loudly to the pedestrians that dared not to look toward the oceans view. I beckoned for their help, pleaded with mercy for any higher man to capture the stranger who roams around fluently but no human had shown a face of worry. I swayed to my left to see beyond the ocean though no boats were present; to my right mostly the roaring cars zoomed in every horizontal corner. No one, not even the second presence of the hands of God, had aided my need.

"Tell me this is just another dream," I heaved looking about for more people to call upon, "Tell me I'm still asleep on the sands and the night has not yet dithered from my presence. I NEED to know!" And when once my caterwaul had reached its peak, it was, yet again, smothered shut by a leather hand. This time it was another being who kept me from seeking the need of freedom.

He said this with a resemblance of a doggy voice, "Now that the others have gone to find that roach of a Tiger, Long, I can finally get my hands on you." It was impossible to seek the appearance of this other man for he had caught me by my blind spot. My arms were wrapped behind me and both my legs were tied by one of his. There wasn't a possibility of sliding away from the grip of him. I wrenched to my side to untangle myself but I found this use as much as trying to untie a thousand knots. "Where do you think YOU'RE going," he said with a grin I could hear from his throat.

Yugo? Had my ears fooled me? Of course, the voice of a dog could have given it away but I had to make sure. My eyes lingered to the crashing waves before me to witness only a few memorable appearances of Yugo. It WAS him and it was no doubt he was the being hidden amongst the corner of the "Discipline" room last night. But what, along with the stranger in the domicile, do they want from me?

It was as if the war among The Corporation had accompanied me once more. The only unrighteous thought of ever seeing again was Kenji Ohgami. Doubtingly, that was another miracle waiting to happen. As many images of the past flourished me with spider-crawling sensations, another such horror came to surface. Embedded deep within, deeper than the devil's dark heart, the lust of obliteration embroidered my veins. Every beat was an accountant from the last, the sands felt as though it trembled from my brusque talons of my paws; the feline features I once remembered were itching to emit from the skin. And amid all that swallowed me more innately, only simple words spoke to me: "Clamber within me here and now; and it will be my heart I shall bestow. I give thee my shallow heart!"

It was surely to be that the confusion from me laid upon Yugo's face somewhere for his grip was beginning to lessen. Either it was his fear of me withering from my natural state to a more atypical being or it has come to, even me, that HE whispered his presence behind our ears:

"Let her be or face, as stereotypic has it, dire consequences."

"Yeah?" Yugo taunted as he whirled me to meet eyes with the stranger, "What if I decline, Xion? Are you going to thrash me otherwise?"

Xion shook his head and replied cunningly, "It is not I who will give you the scolding. Look at her eyes. Tell me that you can sense a lust of hate consuming her stature… that she fancies the sight of the Experiments being extinct. It boils in her blood… just like the Ultrathrope she is!"

A shiver of laughter grew from Yugo as his chin raised high with confidence. Such a quaver made my claws itch for the heart in his ribs. _I consume their deepest fear and make it my capacity. _At the time, Yugo's hidden fear was overwhelming me. If a doctor were to examine him here and now, they would conclude he was besieged with fright. It wasn't long until another thought came to me with advice. _Hush the mouths of the Experiments. It is their fate to decease before you. _For sure, it had to be the _Ultrathrope._

"These things are just a myth," Yugo croaked as he finally shoved me beyond the sands, "Her, an Ultrathrope? Hah! She can't even be a half-breed. Hence, Xion, your dreams of seeing the Ultrathrope will be just that: In your dreams!" As Yugo withheld a breath of intelligence and out-witty thoughts, Xion, again, only shook his head.

**_Once ten thousand things rest, serenity will be your guidance. _**A sudden ticklish feeling began crawl up between my ribs and soon I had no choice but to stand.

"It is time to get out of the real world, Yugo. Once men thought that animals could not be their inner-egos; look at us now." A shallow glower began to surface upon Xion's eyes. It was none like his other cunning looks which were sly and prevailing. It was foxy, devilish, and all the same scary. Even I couldn't keep my eyes on him with just a second to spare. "But more importantly, look at you. Already, she has killed her closest nemesis and yet you fail to see it."

**_I kill my own voice to you: Release that silence! _**Had I already called forth to words of departure?

It has only been none but a few weeks and yet the return of the inner being has come forth of me as more than just a brainless killing machine. But no, it was less than those few weeks that I felt it flood back. My eyes loitered across the sands in which my feet skittered upon. Yugo, to whom I was watching from behind, could not move nor understand what was to come for him. My breath rattled with delight.

"Try holding your breath to your utmost possibility. Death is but a wisp away, Ohgami." It was as though Xion could see the time running short on the traitor. A dial ran slowly across Yugo's brow as it ticked-ticked until death came giggling across his chest. Could he feel it there? Could he see it as I saw him with thickness of blood trailing down the back of his oh-so-clean shirt? Or was he waiting? And if he was, for what?

They say these days that mortals, either Zoanthropes or humans, were never able to know when there time will come to lay rest a thousand sleeping eyes for they could not transfer such a shock any closer to their brains than a wall. I never saw an Experiment act so awed and unknowing as if they, too, could compare a dead person's character. They must think like a drunkard: _It is the world that is crazy not me. _To them, time is useless at the moment though I don't think they know that time has yet continued and it is they who are at a stand still.

Like a child in a caged cradle, I wanted out. I wanted to release what was swelling so deeply inside me and cause all that the past has poisoned me into the blood of the others. Come to think of it, it was they who made my life a wreck; having to run boundlessly away from the villagers and the angry men just to get a loaf of bread. Why should I even hold back my rage just to let the Experiments and humans live as they are? The half-breed's only purpose of staying on Earth was to _serve _these slobs.

This fume I felt bloating my heart had seemed to release in some secretive way for my clenched fists were trembling along with the strain in my heated eyes. Yugo was one of those retched slobs. He, having to manipulate me as soon as Master Long had vanished, _fooled me. _Even **I **admit that my mind wasn't at all clear enough to know what was really going on with the group. The smell of his negligence was strong and yet I blew it away.

"Harvest the power of that anger, Uranus," Xion croaked as his steps were cushioned by the crumbs of sand, "Remember why you survived; remember your _purpose_." I survived only because I had allowed another soul control my limbs. If it wasn't for that inner strength, I wouldn't have made it to this beach. I don't think I would be able to stand here and now. And what of my purpose? My drive was nothing more than to find and recover my midnight love of a man, Kenji Ohgami. I know for sure that there is a way to bring him back. I'm quite sure, if God could help me now, that he's still alive somewhere, waiting patiently for me to come and pounce upon him every time we would meet eye to eye. He would be alive with a heart beating in his ribs; not an Experiment pointlessly searching for something he feels he desperately needs. What other purpose was there for me to fulfill? Maybe it wasn't my purpose at all and rather one of another being; another SOUL. Seeing that Xion was now face to face with the grieving Yugo, it had seemed something, and though I haven't noticed before hand, was slithering from my forearms.

Slowly approaching my eyes to this gleaming substance, the image of the dying Kenji Ohgami had come back to me. He was in my arms, his back smothered with blood and I having to feel it trickle down to my elbow. I was almost able to feel his pulse just in the back of his ribs. Why must it come back more vividly, I wonder? My throat began to ache and swell while I tried to hold back the tears of the past. I could feel, so gently to the left cheek, his warm hand caress upon me and almost tremble from loss of strength. _They killed him and made him their own. What savages! _My fingers spoke these words in random twitches and turns as they finally clasped once again.

A grunt from afar echoed across my ear though I did not make any reaction that I heard it. I still listened to the following words, "You speak to me about a shallow heart, but do you have what it takes to give it to them, these barbarians?" Below of me, the sands began to quaver and the clouds above me cried so quietly, a mouse would come to hear it in its sleep. This couldn't have come from me for my rage was still bottled up somewhere in my inky black heart.

"This is your chance, Uranus," shoving away the few breaths of Yugo, Xion approached to me only close enough to be able to murmur, "Show that you can avenge the death of your love. You have now given me your shallow heart!"

One hand after the other, emerging like the dead of a graveyard, bursts from the sands and into the surface as if the living had come into them again. This was their second chance. There was a God gifted name for these beings now and they were Experiments. There were high school ballerinas, normal worker men, and possibly bloated men and women were all budding like the effect of Miracle Grow and heading for one of their favorite victims, a Half-breed. Unlike what is seen in the movies and though I have mentioned their appearance earlier before, Experiments waltz for so many drives: Life, Death, Humanity, and Emotion. As the dead, only such others would want these for more than their lives but deaths as well. And seeing many of them face before me in the most shrewdness of ways, I wait as though not to know their arrival. They were mere puppets to me.

Xion, too, was relaxed in a way. His arms being occupied by Yugo's ridden body was seemingly distracted by this new arrival. It is to a poker's bet that he would try to do anything to join in with me, annihilating those he had summoned to the ground. Would anyone think I had time to think of this? I differ. The thought of demise was sweet to me. I had never felt so much submerge from me like this. It was as if the night had fell upon me yet the heat of the day boiled in my veins. It was the instinct of the Ultrathrope.

There was a distinct feeling about these other Experiments; it was something that almost made me change my emotion just a bit. If another person was with me, they would agree for the eyes of these beings were quite alarming. They weren't abnormal in any way nor bulbous and full-colored. They were closed. If memory serves me right, a Experiment would never blink no matter how much sand had gathered into their eyes nor if the night was quiet. Sight was their alley and not having it meant complete annihilation for them. _They're only prodding my luck. _I thought.

"On the contrary," Xion spoke in turn. I spun to him and saw that he was now holding Yugo by the neck with just one hand. "They're enhancing your deepest hatred upon them. See that they are dealt with for their false accusations." His mind was yet to be settled as the Experiments were just inches from my space. He, then, turned to Yugo with a sly grin and spoke these words in which I was not able to understand: "Kore ga watashi no yume de aru koto o anou. Yoku, watashi wa watashi no akume ni motenatte imasu."

At first, I wasn't quite sure what he said but the sound and the action alone was a good enough insinuation seeing as the last breath that escaped from Yugo came from the deep jab to the gut. _He's dead already. Why are you still killing him? _I thought. It was a gruesome sight but it wasn't long until it was subsided. Howls of the mourning Experiments awakened something within me though these were not zombie-like mourns. They were wails; high-pitch, were they, to be the screams of their long-lasting pain. They wanted to be freed and I was the one for this task.

Spills of red died down on the atmosphere. Everywhere I turned, pacing drums hammered around the corner; the fat man had to be the one to come first. I knew irony would visit me with its odd ways. Who was to doubt its appearance?

"Listen, kitty, as I open the ears of your inner nature." Xion was not so far from my presence when he flung to my side and away into the flood of the others. He bawled a warrior cry before his fingers had a touch upon the many beings before him, "Koi!" And amongst this cry, I beckoned along with him, having no other control of myself as I hurried with vendetta in my heart, "So-rya!"

_He was right when he said he would open my ears. I have given him my shallow heart and in return, I receive his gluttony for the sound of mirth. _My mind was shrouded deeply and consumed. I had given in to the hatred yet again. I didn't find myself dim-witted or fooled by this outcome, just relived.

Gas. I smelled gas; that of which motor vehicles would use to run riot through the streets and other terrains. But how was it possible? Only the salt smell of the ocean and sand was presumed to be near. Many voices and friction upon the pavements came with it. Though my eyes were tightly shut by the beaming rays of the sun, I could picture a place around me. I was in a place where tall buildings overtook little restaurants and the only way to get pass a bunch of ravaging cars was mostly by foot. Afar the silent soles of the shoes each passing by my falling stature; one came upon me with a halt. It spoke as its body shadowed over my upper physique, "Correct me if I'm wrong, sugar, but aren't you suppose to be at Long' home?"

"Where… where is he?" I croaked trying to seep every last breath I had. The voice hummed in perplexity. Coming out with such a tone, I could inform that it was Jenny.

"Honey," she said in an assured voice as I opened my eyes to find that she was as much concerned as I, "He's long gone. I'm afraid he went off somewhere without warning." _Great, _I thought now reaching to my feet, _Yet another close member missing in my wake. _I tried my best not to swear at this circumstance but the dithering of my fingers kept on going. _If Lost was a person, I would haul it down the yellow brick road! _It bothered me much that every person I try to hem in my hands somehow drifts from me. It was kind of hard trying to let it pass for the one person I let go was something I dearly regretted

"Well," I continued, "What about Steven Goldberg and Gado? I know they're close by, right?" There was a brief silence. I was afraid to continue on the question. I didn't think I could take another lost at such a time. Unfortunately, I received the answer with a low consultant of air.

"Gado and I are out looking for Long. He's rummaging around just a couple blocks as we speak." She said.

"And Steven?" If Gado is all right then I know Steven is good and healthy for sure! I thought in a higher mood. Jenny took a while to respond so I asked again, this time, with a higher mood than the last, "And Steven!" A sure sign of grief rested somewhere on her face; it made me do the same. "Is he hurt?" I mumbled.

"He… He lost a lot of blood trying to stop Long. I don't know what was in your master's head when he ran off but… Steven… he tried." She didn't have to say anymore. It was clear Steven Goldberg wasn't in the kind of condition to walk around right now, let alone breathe again. Jenny endured another time to take a breather as I cuddled close to her in comfort. I may not have known this man no more than a couple of hours and Jenny being a day or two, but their bond between themselves seemed close to me. Yes, it was another lost and another burden in my mind to keep forever more. I wondered, then, if the people who had lost their family felt the same as I. How uncomfortable it felt to have someone you've seen before vanished the next day and now roam as a senseless Experiment who feeds off of loneliness.

"Half-breed?" Jenny whispered with soft sniffs, "Could you remind me… what it's like being alive?" It startled me a little to know that she, too, was an Experiment though it didn't seem like it throughout her character. She was too _whole _to seem so empty. She even _cries_. But were they tears of emotion, or just some trick she learned along the line emptiness? No. It was too real.

"I'm not sure for myself," I struggled with what I really felt inside. Either I pitied this world to possess such a painstaking memory or the fact that some things are meant to go on no matter how much a person loved them so. Really, I had no clue as to know if I was in a shroud of sorrow. Maybe there was a hint of glee consuming me so much that it brought me to the brink of tears. I cry, for what? I search; to seek more happiness? That happiness being Twilight waiting on the other side of The Corporation or either me being released from the seal of my inner nature, it was a sentiment an Experiment could not have.

"I am… confused," she spoke in turn. I thought the same. We were so young though she was some many years older than I and yet still we knew so much of each other. The pedestrians of the public around us didn't pay any mind to our halt. It was they who didn't know worry or act in any way confusion would want them to act. They were immune to this, thus, they were human; not a Half-breed, not an Experiment… human.

…

I never knew water was thicker than blood.


End file.
